


Here Comes The Sun

by envythenight



Series: Hunger Games [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Minor Violence, pretty much everything that comes with hunger games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 52,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envythenight/pseuds/envythenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson, reaped for the 67th Hunger Games, vows to himself and his sister, that he'll make it back to district eight alive, no distractions allowed. Only problem is, he didn't count on meeting Sherlock Holmes or Jim Moriarty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Call It What You Want

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to say that I'm over the moon at the love this story has got, especially since I always considered that I would be writing it for myself. I know I haven't replied to all the comments here because I genuinely don't know what to say, but know that I read and treasure every one of them!

It’s almost two o’clock.

John takes a deep breath, grabs his sister’s hand, and leads them towards the square.

“Don’t worry Harry,” he says, sounding a lot more calm than he actually feels. “You won’t get picked.”

It’s her first time. Her name’s in once. She won’t get picked.

He, on the other hand, does not have the odds in his favour. Five times for his age, then fifteen for the tesserae. It’s a cruel system, where each number of tesserae applications is added to the previous. When he was twelve, he started out with three for tesserae. But then the next year was six, then nine… And now fifteen. Despite the fact that he and his family only get just enough grain to survive a year. He wants to tear his eyes out every time he sees those stupid Capitol posters: ‘I have plenty to eat thanks to my tesserae!’ He’d have plenty to eat if all the food made by the districts wasn’t sent to the Capitol just to be wasted. But that’s the system, and he can’t change it.

Harry, being the youngest, is pushed to the back of the roped areas, and he is put near the front, with only the other seventeen and eighteen year olds in front of him.

He looks up to the Mayor, who has just stepped forwards. The sunshine hurts his eyes, and he finds it hard to look at the Mayor, but he forces himself not to look away. Now’s not the time to get in trouble for disobedience or whatever the Peacekeepers can cook up.

The Mayor starts to read the history of the Hunger Games the moment the clock in the town square strikes two. He then reads the list of previous district eight winners. The list is not long, but it’s not short either. In fact, one of the hardest parts of watching the Reapings is hearing the list of two district twelve winners, and watching the remaining one collapse about the stage, completely smashed. Everyone knows that the Hunger Games is basically a slaughter house for district twelve. Of course, it’s a slaughter for everyone, but district twelve more than most, them being the poorest, weakest and least trained of all the districts. Poor things almost never even survive the first five minutes. Possibly the one advantage John can see to living in district twelve, is that they apparently have the most laid back Peacekeepers. He’s even heard that some of the Peacekeepers there _know_ about the fact that some of the citizens sneak out to the woods surrounding it to hunt, and more than that, _buy_ food from them! He holds back a snort, imagining him trying to sell illegal food to one of their Peacekeepers. It’d be a death sentence. 

He’s so lost in thought that he almost doesn’t hear their escort, Trill Glamour, announce happily, “Ladies first!” With a jolt, he focuses on her hand, the two inch long shocking pink nails getting in the way of her attempt to choose a pig for the slaughter.

Don’t be Harry, don’t be Harry…

“Sarah Sawyer!” she cries with a grin, finally pulling out a slip of paper and reading it.

Guilt washes through his body as he feels only relief for Harry.

Trill’s blinding white teeth flash as she smiles. There’s a collective moan that runs through the audience. It’s always a sad occasion when a twelve year old gets picked. The odds were not in her favour: her name can’t have been in more than a handful of times. Worse still, the poor thing is making her way up to the stage, shaking like a leaf. Trill throws an arm around her, and laughs.

“Bet you’re just raring to go!” she comments ignorantly, and John feels the whole of district eight hold back a hiss. “But we have to find your partner first!”

She reaches back into the bowl and John clenches his firsts.

What are his odds? They’re not great, but equally they’re not bad. Then again, what does the number of times his name is in really matter? Sarah had her name in less than five times, and there were perhaps more than a thousand other names to choose from, yet she still got picked. But he has to hope that he has a chance. A chance for him and Harry to get through this alive.

“John Watson!”

John blinks, and waits for the boy to come forward. He frowns and looks to his left and right and sees no one moving. Strange.

Then he hears a scream. Dimly, he recognises it as Harry’s. He looks up at the stage to see Trill grinning down at him.

The realisation hits him like a freight train. It takes a monumental amount of self-control to stop himself from collapsing to the ground, which he does by clenching his fists even tighter. He thinks his fingernails might be biting to hard into the flesh of his palms, because blood trickles through his fingers.

He will not faint. He refuses to show such weakness in front of all the watching districts. Like a robot on autopilot, he makes his way up to the stage.

Trill makes another vapid comment, but John’s not listening. He’s watching Harry, who’s screaming and crying and being held back by a couple of other twelve year olds. They’re looking at each other nervously, scared that Harry won’t shut up before the Peacekeepers come and make her. Harry rakes her nails down one girl’s arm, but to her credit, the girl grits her teeth and doesn’t let go. He focuses on the struggle so that he doesn’t have to think of anything else.

District eight is an unlikely win. Not impossible, but not likely. And he can kill, he knows that.

But will he?

He sneaks a glance at Sarah and feels his stomach twist uncomfortably. If he comes face to face with Sarah, even for Harry, he’s not sure he’d be able to murder a twelve year old girl. And there are bound to be others, from other districts, children he will have to murder. It’s too much to hope that he can hide out till the end. So yes, he can kill. But murder is another category entirely. He’s not so sure he can murder.

 *****

After the whole ceremony’s done, he’s lead to a rich, velvet room. He would spend more time enjoying it if it wasn’t a reminder that he’s likely never to touch the stuff again. Huh. No more making fabrics for those stupid Capitol sheep. He barks a laugh. Perhaps there is an upside to this dying thing.

Harry bursts into the room and, tears streaming down her face, throws herself into John’s lap. They don’t say anything for most of the time. There’s nothing to say. He’s received a death sentence, and nothing they say can make them forget it.

When there’s about five minutes left, he pulls Harry to her feet and makes her look him in the eye.

“Make sure to help dad out, while I’m gone, okay? You gotta make sure someone’s taking my place at his side, okay?”

Harry nods and sniffs, wiping her nose across the back of her hand.

“And Harry…” John pauses, wary of his next words. “Harry, I know how most family members go in our district.” He grabs her arm, and holds it tightly. “Don’t go onto Morphling.” Harry averts her eyes, but he drags her face back to his. “Harry I need you to promise me. It’s especially important because you’ll have access to it, when you help dad. Please, Harry,” he begs.

“My brother’s going to die, what do you expect me to do!” she snaps. “You know I’ve never been good at keeping clear of stuff that’s dangerous for me, and now looks like the perfect excuse!”

She sounds a lot older than she should. Jesus this has hit her hard.

“Nice to know you have such faith in me!” John growls.

Harry sags, the fight leaving her. She suddenly looks her age again.

“John,” she sighs. “I wanna believe you’re coming back but… We’re district eight. Textiles. What have you got going for you that means you can outdo the other tributes? I mean, district seven, lumber, those guys have been throwing axes since they were toddlers. District four, been working with hooks and baits and spears all their lives. District three, can do wonders with electronics, kill people with it.” She gently removes her arm from his grasp. “I can’t help but think that the only people you’ve got something on is district twelve.”

She sniffs again, and pulls his right arm towards her, palm facing upwards. She unties the strip of fabric wrapped around her wrist, and reties it around John’s wrist. John takes in the lettering across it in shock: ‘To Harry, from Clara, xx’. She seems to sense his protest, and shushes him.

“It can be your token. Maybe now it can used for something other than mourning.”

He looks at it in silence, and swallows around the lump in his throat.

Eventually, when it feels like he won’t start crying, he says, “I’ve got herbs, and medicines, Harry. Maybe I can hide out till it all blows over.” Harry snorts. He continues over her, “Even if that’s not the case, I’ve been tending to bodies all my life. I know the right places to stick a knife, or strike a blow.”

“But can you actually do it?” she whispers, echoing his earlier worries.

He twists the fabric on his wrist with his hand, worried. After a pause, he says, “I’m not helpless. And that’s enough.”

 *****

He feels a little queasy by the time the train’s set off, but it’s not really the speed that’s bothering him. It’s the hungry eyes of all the journalists and reporters at the station, a sharp and jarring reminder that they’re tracking his final days, and that he has worse to come; the unnerving eyes of the Capitol sheep.

He looks over to Sarah, who’s staring out of the window, but it looks like she’s not really taking it in. John feels rather the same. But he forces himself to stop wallowing in misery, because honestly, he can’t afford to waste time doing that, when these are likely to be among his last days. He mutters to Sarah that he’s going to take a shower, but she doesn’t acknowledge it.

When he gets to the shower, he’s surprised to see that there is hot water readily available. In hindsight, he shouldn’t be really, but he’s unused to all this luxury around him that he can actually touch without it being quickly ripped away. The scalding water feels good on his skin, although strange given his usual lack of it, and when he’s finished, he changes into some clothes that he finds outside the door. They’re richer even than his Reaping day outfit. He changes into it, feeling slightly uncomfortable in clothes that are worth enough to buy food for every member of district eight for a week.

When he returns to the dining car, Sarah, Trill and two mentors are sitting at the table. Sarah is no longer unfocussed, but is glaring at the air in front of her. Personally, he can see where she’s coming from.

But he forgets that at the sight of _food_ in front of him. Enough food to last him a month, given to him for one meal. He fights the urge to cram everything down his throat, and instead calmly sits down, and takes a slice of chicken and puts it on his plate. He ignores the gravy, it looking a little too rich for his feeble stomach. He takes almost half of the fruits they put in front of him. His stomach hurts so bad from holding back the desire to just shove everything into his mouth at once, but he knows that his stomach can’t handle it. He has to take things really, _really_ slow.

Trill nods her approval. “Last pair tried too much, too fast and threw up all over the place.” She wrinkles her nose in distaste. “Such lack of manners. My dress was ruined.”

If John spears his chicken a little too hard after she says that, no one says anything.

“… Are you not eating anything?” John asks Sarah, noticing that she hasn’t taken anything. It takes her so long to reply that John had begun to think she hadn’t heard his question.

“Not hungry.”

It’s obvious that she’s lying, but he knows what she means.

“That doesn’t matter,” John replies. “We need to build up our strength as much as possible in the short time we have.”

“Maybe I don’t want to get my stomach unused to being hungry. Might help in the games.”

John sees her point, but disagrees with her privately. But if that’s the way she wants to go, who is he to stop her?

They’re lead to the next compartment along when John is done, to watch the Reapings. He doesn’t take note of all of them. There’s a woman from one who looks like she’s right where she wants to be, and she looks slightly cocky, her eyes glittering. The man with her looks like he’s itching to start already, and John makes a mental note to stay far away from him. No one from two is particularly interesting; they just look like strong, trained kids, but not as dangerous as the guy from one. Three’s girl is nothing special. Three’s guy…

John’s heart jumps into his throat. It’s strange, because the man looks innocent as can be, with big brown puppy dog eyes, but John senses something dangerous about him. Maybe it’s the way he’s smiling, which is odd enough on its own, especially since the girl next to him looks like she’s trying not to cry, but the smile looks kinda like the smile of a wolf who’s just worked out how to unlatch the sheep’s pen. John makes another mental note to never turn his back on that guy. He’d be stabbed in a heartbeat.

He missed four’s, but focuses in time to catch five’s second tribute. A tall, thin, dark haired man. He looks surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing. Not in the way that John imagines he looked, like he’s _forcing_ himself to look relaxed to put off the competition, but the man looks… well, if John had to put a name to it, he’d say ‘bored’. John thinks he almost recognises him.

No one else catches his attention until seven, where there’s an angry looking woman who, almost unnoticeably, has one of her fingers in the hand of the guy next to her, who is wearing a similar expression of discontent. It looks like they might be friends. John grimaces for them. However they go down will be painful. One will either kill the other, or will end up dead by another hand, leaving the other to mourn for their fallen friendship.  

Then there’s the couple from eleven. The girl is a mousy thing, looking younger than John thinks she actually is. She looks very much like she’s trying not to let her emotions get the better of her, and to be fair to her, she isn’t crying. The man has his arm around her, looking out at the audience worriedly. John thinks it’s fair to say they’re probably going to form an alliance.

After that, there’s nothing more to do, and he heads to bed. The luxury and softness of the sheets is uncomfortable, but the gentle rocking of the train as it speeds across Panem isn’t.

 *****

The one piece of advice he gets from his mentor before the train pulls in is, ‘Don’t squirm, and let the prep team and stylist do whatever they need to.’ Huh. He can’t even remember her name, and he’s meant to be taking advice from her that could save his life.

The Capitol’s people rush to the windows when they recognise the tribute train. John, fighting back bile, smiles and waves cheerily. Maybe not smart, since he doesn’t know his angle for the interviews yet, but perhaps he can pull a few sponsors from this in case his opening and training score go south.

He takes his mentor’s advice, and lets the prep team rip the hairs from his body, and scrub him till his skin’s raw without a word of complaint. He tries very hard to ignore their constant chatter as they hop excitedly, like little birds, around him. Their Capitol accents are so ridiculous, sounding like everything’s a question, and he has to stop himself from imitating them. That probably wouldn’t go down well with them, and then he might end up like one of those poor district twelves from one year, where they were wearing nothing but coal dust.

His costume is disappointingly nothing exciting. The same old sort of thing: a silk peacekeeper’s uniform. He’s irrationally angry, because this is his first shot at getting the stupid citizens to sponsor him, which could be the difference between food and starvation, life and death, and he’s stuck with a stupid piece of material that’s going to make their eyes glide over him and onto greener pastures. Even being naked and covered in coal dust is better than this. At least then he would get noticed.

When he’s dressed, he meets Sarah down at the chariots on the lowest level of the Remake centre. He’s glad to see that she looks about as pissed off as he feels. He nudges her gently.

“Hey, we still have the interviews.”

It doesn’t cheer her up, but he’s really not surprised.

“We might as well be in district fucking twelve,” she spits. He widens his eyes at her language.

“Wow, didn’t expect that from a girl who was shaking when she got called up to the stage.”

He half expects her to turn on him, snap at him, or something, but instead she deflates.

“I’m just feeling so hopeless about the whole thing that I’ve kinda… Become very aggressive,” she admits.

“I didn’t notice,” John says with a small smile. She manages to return it.

She takes a deep breath and says, “Perhaps everyone else will be so drab that we won’t look so… plain.”

They glance at each other, and they’re both aware that it’s highly unlikely. Even if most of the districts are in the same boat as them, district one will always attract attention with their flashy jewels and strong tributes. As they climb onto the chariot, John holds back a groan as he catches sight of district four, their clothes sleek and tight, and made of reflective blues and greens and silvers that imitate the scales of a fish, and they look _fantastic_. He and Sarah are going to die.

He pauses for a second, feeling someone’s harsh gaze on him, and he turns to see who it is. He forces himself not to recoil as he catches sight of the tribute from district three staring at him, those child-like brown eyes focused on him momentarily. The bastard looks fantastic as well, in a black suit that’s criss-crossed with blue lines that look like a circuit. At least, John thinks that’s what it is, as he’s never seen one up close. The blue parts are crackling with electricity, lighting up his face with a soft blue. It should make him look innocent, but his eyes have been accented with gold eyeliner, which glints in the light and makes it look like his eyes are flashing dangerously.

At least, that’s what John hopes it is.

When they get on the chariot, John knows it’s over. He and Sarah smile and wave and blow kisses to the screaming audience, but the screams are not for them. They’re for the other tributes, the beautiful ones with glimmering costumes. But he’s going to try and get their attention, make them think they’re special. He winks at some of the citizens, presses a finger to his lips like he knows something that he’s decided to share only with them and grins. Some eyes do follow him as he passes, and that’s good enough for him.

When the chariots reach President Snow’s mansion, the horses slow to a stop. Despite himself, John can’t help but watch the screen, which flicks through the districts’ tributes. He is unsurprised to see that once the cameras have flicked through each tribute once, they return to the jaw-dropping ones. The woman from one, wearing a long, floaty dress, which flickers through red, blue, green, orange, with a pattern that looks like light refracting through a gem. The striking man from five, his tight shirt lit up like a light bulb, casting shadows on his face that highlight his cheekbones. And finally, the camera holds on the man from three, the one sparking with electricity, who’s grinning wickedly like this is the most fun he’s had all year.

It disturbs John because, granted everyone expects this to some extent from the careers, but this man is from district three, which isn’t one of the worst off districts, but it’s among the poorest and it’s not a likely win.

Though it is likelier than him.

President Snow finishes his speech, and the horses pull away suddenly. John manages to balance himself in time so as not to fall on his face. That definitely would not give any future sponsors a good impression.

He’s glad that the opening ceremony is over. Mostly because once he gets to floor eight, he can eat. The elevator ride takes longer than he likes and before he’s even properly seated, he starts to pile food onto his plate. Beef first, then peas, then sweet corn, then some food he doesn’t know the name of. The others watch on in silence, except for Sarah who is doing the same as him. As he starts to eat, he thinks that the stylists and mentors are talking, formulating plans, but he doesn’t pay attention. All he can focus on in that moment is eating, and eating well.

It seems that no one settled on a good plan, as when he looks up, done with his meal, they don’t tell him anything. Dessert is brought in, and he is tempted, but again he is wary because he’s not sure his stomach can handle something that it’s so unused to. Sarah seems to make the same decision as him, as they both request to be excused at the same time.

They head to their separate rooms in silence, and he and Sarah bid each other goodnight warily when the corridor splits and they go their separate ways. It’s late, and back in his district, he’d be asleep by now, but instead he paces up and down his room. That day was not a great success, and tomorrow was training. He’s not so sure that’s going to go well.

After half an hour, he stops pacing, crawls into bed and falls into a restless sleep.

 *****

“What skills do you have?”

John and Sarah stare blankly at their mentors.

“If you have a skill that you’re unwilling to share with the other, we can ask you separately,” the woman says after a moment.

“No,” John says quietly. “I just don’t really have anything that I think is important.”

“We’ll be the judge of that,” the man comments.

John sneaks a glance at Sarah, and then says, “I worked with my father for years at healing; I know all of the medicinal plants that grow in district eight, and a lot that don’t. I know various poisonous and edible plants that can be found in district eight, but I don’t know of any that are found outside. I know a few places on a human body that can kill instantly, and I know a few that will stun. I’m also very good at climbing, and though I haven’t had much practice with trees, I imagine it can’t be more difficult than climbing buildings. I can also shoot a bow and arrow, but I haven’t had much practice that requires steady aim, so I don’t know if I can shoot to kill, and I don’t know if I can catch food with it.”

“That doesn’t seem like nothing,” the woman points out.

“Maybe, but there’s a lot more that I don’t know. I can’t prepare snares, or use spears. I’ve no idea how to fish. District eight has no forests, so I know nothing about them, or how to survive in them. I can’t build a fire. I could go on.”

The woman nods absentmindedly, and John can tell that while he has some redeeming qualities, his drawbacks are numerous, and she probably doesn’t think he’ll survive. The mentors turn to Sarah, and wait for her to speak.

“I… I also know many medicinal plants and herbs that grow in district eight, but I don’t know any that grow outside of it. I don’t know any poisonous or edible plants, other than one or two. I’m very good at using a knife, mainly throwing them, but I’ve only ever killed animals with it, not people. I also know a few fighting techniques that… um… they date from before the foundation of Panem.”

The mentors raise their eyebrows, impressed.

Well shit. Now they think Sarah’s the survivor.

Sarah adds quickly, “But I have the same drawbacks as John. I don’t know how to fish, and I know nothing about forests and I can’t build a fire. I’ve never had to use snares so I don’t know about them either.”

The woman draws a deep breath and says, “Well, it’s better than what we’ve sometimes had to work with before.”

“Okay, when it comes to training, focus on what you don’t know, rather than on what you do.” The man looks at John and says, “You, when you get down there, find out whether your aim with a bow and arrow is good. If it isn’t, work on it. It’s easier to improve on that than start messing around learning how to throw a spear.” He turns to Sarah. “You, learn some more plants that grow outside of district eight, edible and poisonous. You never know what information you might need to use in the Games. Both of you, learn how to build a fire, check out the snares table as well. Don’t bother about fishing; there’s no training for it down there and frankly it’s a waste of your time when you both seem to be able to find other sources of food. Worst comes to worst, it’s likely that we can send you something from your sponsors.”

“When you finish eating you can go down,” the woman says. “Just remember: feel free to show off one of your mediocre to good talents, that’ll keep the careers and such of your back, but keep your special skill for yourself and your private session. Focus on what you need to learn though, rather than scaring off opponents at this stage. Chances are that if you scare them too much, they’ll knock you out at the beginning so they don’t have to face you later.”

He and Sarah head down after eating a full breakfast, in an attempt to prepare themselves. They wait patiently as someone pins a cloth square to each of their backs with their district number on, listening as the head trainer explains the rules to them, and how the training session works. When she’s finished, Sarah and John part ways, as is normal, their mentors having given them no instructions about sticking together.

John, despite his mentors’ wishes, heads not to the wilderness survival or bow and arrow stations, but heads to the plants section. Sarah it seems has taken their instructions more seriously, and is already learning how to build a fire at the survival stations. He knows that it may not be advisable, but he’s very worried about the fact that his knowledge of poisonous and edible plants only extends to those that reside in district eight. Even in the slim, almost infinitesimal chance that they are not planted in a forest like the ones that are outside or in most other districts, that still means that he’s at a disadvantage, or at least doesn’t have the upper hand, because he doesn’t know the plants of deserts, jungles and the like. On top of that, if it turns out he can’t aim for shit, he won’t be able to catch any meat, leaving plants as his only dependable food source. He needs to have good solid knowledge of them then. So he spends a while getting to grips with a few more useful plants, feeling the stares of the Gamemakers on him. He doesn’t think they’re impressed.

After an hour or so at that station, he finally works up the courage to head over to the bows and arrows. He takes his time choosing a bow. Of the little that he remembers of his mother, he can clearly hear her say that you must never underestimate the importance of choosing the correct bow. A bad bow means a bad shot.

He finally gets one he likes and lines up his shots. He doesn’t aim at the dummys, choosing the targets instead for a better idea of his skill. His first arrow misses the board, but does stick in the wall behind it. He’s sure he hears the sniggers of some career tributes, but he ignores them, draws in a deep breath, and tries again. This time he hits the white, and he definitely hears a snort from somewhere. He closes his eyes to calm himself, then opens them and slowly turns around. None of the careers are watching him now, but he knows that one of them was the culprit. It doesn’t really matter, but it kind of pisses him off. But at least they won’t see him as a threat now.

John suddenly frowns, feeling someone’s gaze on him. In the corner, over by the plants station where he was earlier, the tall, thin bloke from district five is watching him carefully, eyes narrowed. John still feels that there is something familiar about him, but he can’t place it. He doesn’t like that, and he looks away. John’s eyes travel across to the next station, snares, where—

John jerks back. If the man from five is observing him, the eerily beautiful man from three is _dissecting_ him. He turns away, feeling too much like a butterfly pinned down on a sheet under his watch. He still feels uncomfortable, but it’s diminished now that he can’t see the man.

John looks to his bow and sighs. He pulls back his bowstring and tries again. This time, he hits black.

By the end of the day, he is hitting the central yellow ring, consistently. 


	2. Under The Stars

Over the next couple of days, John manages to pick up several new skills, such as how to build a fire, how to set up some basic snares, how to survive using certain trees and how to filter water using charcoal and sand. He’d say he’s been using his time well. But his time’s run out. He, and the rest of the tributes, are waiting around to be called in for a private session.

“Would you like to form an alliance?”

John startles, jerking his head to see who would be crazy enough to ask him this. He’d been prepared Sarah to ask (and his answer would have been no), but that was not a girl’s voice.

It’s the man from five.

“We don’t know anything about each other,” John retorts. The man smiles, like John has fallen into his trap.

“I know that you are the assistant of a healer, but when you were younger you used to practice hunting with a bow and arrow, but you gave up long ago, probably because one of your parents who taught you died. I know you have a sister who had a _very_ close friend who died, likely in one of the Games, leading you to constantly worry about her falling prey to some narcotic.” He leans in close and whispers, “I know you think you haven’t got a hope in Hell of coming out of this alive, even though you’re hiding a skill that can keep you safe for the majority of the games.” He straightens, and gives a lopsided smile. “That’s enough to be going on surely?”

“…How…?”

The man just grins.

“That was…” John searches for the right words. “Pretty cool. Eerie, but cool.”

“Really?” the man asks, grin falling as John catches a flicker of desperation in his eyes.

“Yes,” John confirms. The man starts to smile again.

“That’s not what most people say.”

“What do they normally say?”

The man doesn’t answer.

“O…Kay,” John says slowly, the awkwardness almost palpable.

“It’s Sherlock,” the man says.

“John,” John replies. After a pause, he says, “Look, I think you should think more carefully about your alliances. You don’t even know what training score I’m going to get.”

“I don’t care what the Gamemakers think,” Sherlock says with a raised eyebrow. “I can make my own judgements perfectly well, and I’ve seen you with a bow. I’ve made my decision.”

“Look, there are better tributes out there. Know more than I do. You should ask one of them,” John finds himself almost pleading.

“You are the only person not to come up and ask me to form an alliance. Even your seemingly timid friend Sarah asked me. They all know who I am.” He pauses and adds, “I think you know too, but you don’t remember that you do.”

“And who are you?” John snaps, thinking that this Sherlock bloke is starting to sound a bit up himself.

“District five. Sherlock,” Sherlock says, not answering his question. “Just… Just think about it.”

Sherlock then leaves, and John rolls his eyes. What a prick. He hmms to himself, and has to admit that he’s a rather clever prick.

A sudden shiver goes up John’s spine, and he knows that the guy from district three must be watching him again. He grits his teeth and tries to ignore it, waiting to finally be called in for his session.

One by one, the tributes are called in. John breathes a sigh of relief when the man from three has come and gone, even though the man came out grinning, and so has probably done stupidly well. Sherlock comes out looking neither pleased, nor disappointed. Again, he looks a lot like he’s bored and would rather have something more interesting going on than fighting for his life.

John’s heart starts racing when the woman from seven is called in. He’s next and he hasn’t a fucking clue what he’s going to do. His mentors had told him to show his special skill. But what was his special skill?

The woman from seven leaves about ten minutes later, and John is summoned in. He forces his breathing under control as he steps over the threshold and the door slams shut behind him. He stands frozen for a couple of seconds, but he finally manages to force his feet to move over to the bows and arrows. He checks the feel of each bow before he chooses the one closest to what feels right. He grabs a quiver of arrows and slings them over his shoulder.

He draws in a deep breath, loads his first arrow, and releases. It hits the centre of the target. Without even a second’s pause, he pulls the next arrow out of the quiver and loads it too. It also hits the centre. He keeps this up until the entire middle circle of the target is filled. He grabs another arrow from his quiver and twists to the left at the same time, shooting at the small marked target over a dummy’s heart. He gets its neck with the next shot, and then hits its heart again.

He’s run out of arrows.

What else can he show them? How can he show his intricate knowledge of herbs and plants that are what will actually keep him alive in the Games? How can he show that he knows how to kill with one blow, when all he has is a dummy? How to show them that he can climb better than any other tribute, never having to touch the ground once in the arena?

He looks up to the Gamemakers. Two are watching him. The rest are not even facing him, eating and chatting and laughing and John is clenching his fists so hard that he feels like he’s going to explode. The opening ceremony and the Gamemakers…

He was never going to survive this. He knew it right from the start but he didn’t let himself believe it. But now it’s being shoved down his throat and he can’t stand it.

John evaluates the wall up to where the Gamemakers are playing with human lives without a care in the world. He’s climbed steeper, he notes. He jumps, launching himself more than halfway up the wall. His hands grab for something, and he manages to catch onto a steel bar, a couple of feet below where the Gamemakers stand. He swings up this, and lands feet first in front of the Gamemakers. Even now, less than half are watching him.

“Thank you for your time,” he sneers.

He doesn’t wait to be dismissed, and jumps back down, rolling forwards as he hits the floor to reduce the impact. He gets up without a word, and doesn’t look back.

Sarah is waiting outside for her turn when he gets there. She doesn’t ask him how it went, and he doesn’t tell her.

 *****

The scores will be announced in the morning. John thinks they’re doing it because they’re trying to make him kill himself before the Games begin. Granted, what he did was not horrific, it’s not like he attacked the Gamemakers or anything, but he showed contempt for their way of life, and that’s enough to make him seem dangerous to them. They also didn’t see his shooting skills, or anything else he can do. He won’t have impressed them at all.

John turns to the window of his bedroom. It’s night, but the sky is still alight with the blues and whites of the Capitol lights, though they just appear as blurs through the rain. The Capitol can’t be enjoying the rain that much, and it makes him smile a little to remember that the Capitol can’t control everything. Even they are slaves to the whims of nature.

Rain… He frowns. It’s reminding him of something, but he can’t think what it is. Sherlock keeps flashing in his mind, for some reason. He looks to the rain, and then to his hands, slightly curled as though they’re holding something.

The revelation hits him like one of those 250 mile an hour Capitol trains.

He knows who Sherlock is.

John leaves his room, checking quickly that no one is around. He heads straight to the elevator, and when the doors close, he presses the five button. He nervously looks out of the glass lift to check that no one can see him. While this isn’t against the rules, it doesn’t seem like something he should be doing.

The doors to the elevator open, and John pauses. He doesn’t know which room is Sherlock’s. He steps forwards and stops suddenly when he realises that someone is sitting at the table, with a plate of food in front of them. His heart hammers in his chest so loud he’s surprised that the person doesn’t whip round to ask why he’s intruding. When that doesn’t happen, he manages to calm down enough to realise that he recognises the tall slim figure in the chair.

“Tell me,” John says, “does it rain a lot in your district?”

John thinks that Sherlock knew he was there the whole time, because he doesn’t startle, but stands to face him. His expression is blank, but John thinks he sees a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“Not particularly, no.”

“Hmm.” John frowns and Sherlock steps closer. “I’m just wondering why your brother always has an umbrella with him then.”

A grin lights up Sherlock’s face. John likes him better this way, when he doesn’t look like dying would be more interesting than being here.

“I knew you knew,” he says, almost proudly.

“And that’s why everyone wants to ally themselves with you,” John guesses. “They think the Mayor holds some sway over what happens, and even if not, he’s rich enough to provide you with the supplies you need. They want in on that.”

Sherlock nods.

“I’m not so sure,” John says carefully. “I’m sure your brother cares, but I’m sure his hands are tied when it comes to this.”

“Most likely,” Sherlock agrees.

Sherlock looks almost hopeful, and John has to stop him before he gets carried away by saying, “Sherlock, look, I still don’t think we should form an alliance. My training session went to shit, the opening ceremony got me no sponsors, I have no idea what I’m doing for the interview, and on top of that, we’re in different districts. Careers are the only ones who make those kinds of alliances.”

“Maybe you’ll change your mind when you see my training score,” Sherlock says.

“And maybe not,” John replies, privately thinking that Sherlock is sounding a bit up himself again. “Look, I gotta go. We’ve gotta be up early for the scores tomorrow.”

Sherlock looks a little upset, but John tells himself that Sherlock will get over it.

 *****

The training scores. Fuck, he is so not prepared for this. But the anthem’s started and the boy from one’s picture flashes up. His cold eyes remind John that he needs to stay well away from him, and his typical Career score hammers that home. A nine. The woman who came with him gets a ten. Two’s tributes both get eights. The guy from three’s face appears, his wide brown eyes excited, and then his score appears below. John almost has a heart attack. A twelve. Fucking hell, the guy who on the face of it looks among the most innocent of everyone got a twelve. John was right to think that he had a dangerous vibe to him.

The girl from three gets a five. Four’s both get sevens. Then it’s Sherlock’s turn. John leans forward, waiting to see what Sherlock seemed sure would change his mind.

One.

John blinks, and looks again to check he saw that right. It’s definitely a one. Is he seeing single? Did Sherlock get an eleven and he just can’t focus properly? He turns to Sarah and sees her mouth has dropped. She’s surprised too, which means…

Sherlock got a one.

Was Sherlock just over-confident, did he think he’d done better than he really had? Granted, he came off as arrogant, but John could see that he seemed to have good reason for it. He wouldn’t be sure he’d done well unless there was no doubt that he could have done otherwise. So Sherlock must have… Known he was getting a low score?

John shakes his head and tries to focus back on the scores. Annoyingly, he missed six and seven’s scores, damn stupid, but at least he comes back in time to see his own.

Three.

He doesn’t have much time to try and process that before his score’s gone and then Sarah’s flashes up next. She got a six. All the tributes following her get five or higher. Even the mousy girl from eleven gets a five. What could she have done that gave her two more points than him!

John buries his face in his hands. Oh fuck. He knew it was going to be bad, but excluding Sherlock, he’s got the lowest score of the bunch, even with that tiny, looks-like-she-couldn’t-hurt-a-fly girl from eleven!

A three. God, had his training session been that bad? Maybe he pissed the Gamemakers off, but his shooting was good, spot on. Then again, they weren’t looking at it.

Everyone around him is silent; they don’t know what to say. But that doesn’t matter. John lifts his head and grits his teeth. He knows damn well he can shoot, and Sherlock knows that too. If the other tributes try and count him out… Well, he’ll be waiting.

“I’ve got to go,” John mutters, and rises from the couch.

He heads to the elevator and presses the open button. It arrives in a couple of seconds and he stomps in. The elevator glides down to the fifth floor, down to Sherlock. When the doors open again, Sherlock is waiting for him.

“Sherlock,” John says through gritted teeth, “I want to make an alliance.”

Sherlock grins.

 *****

“The Gamemakers were wrong,” Sherlock says at breakfast the next morning. John’s back on floor five, having slipped away from his mentors at his own breakfast. He hasn’t told them yet that he’s agreed to ally with Sherlock, and despite the fact that they already are favouring Sarah over him, they won’t be impressed.

Sherlock’s mentors don’t care. When John had showed up on their floor, in the middle of their breakfast, they had narrowed their eyes at him and then snapped at Sherlock, calling him a fool and asking if he meant to throw his life away. John hadn’t really taken any offence at what he took to be an insult directed towards him (that Sherlock would survive better without John dragging him down), but Sherlock had not taken it so lightly, and had caused such a fuss by saying things about them that the mentors and the girl from district five had been forced to leave the room.

And John was all the happier for it, shovelling down Sherlock’s breakfast like no tomorrow.

“Well,” Sherlock continues, “it’s not often that they’re right, but they were particularly wrong in your case. Your shooting alone is worth an eight, and that’s not factoring in your hidden skill, your medical knowledge…” Sherlock pauses and takes a small bite of a slice of toast on the plate in front of him. “It doesn’t matter to me that they are wrong, most people often are, but I’m sorry it came at the expense of your sponsors.”

“That’s okay,” John mumbles through a mouthful of porridge. “I was upset before but, well…” He swallows, and continues, “It’s not the one with the most sponsors at the beginning that wins, it’s the one at the end. There’s a lot of shifting once people get inside the arena. And well, when it comes down to it, I have the skills to get by without many sponsors, providing the Gamemakers don’t send anything special after me.”

Sherlock smiles at him, a smile that John is quickly learning is one that means ‘I didn’t expect to find you so interesting, and I like it’.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?”

“Why do you keep saying I have this ‘hidden skill’?”

“Because you do,” Sherlock says, frowning.

“And actually, while we’re on the subject, how did you know those things about me?”

“It’s all very simple,” Sherlock says, his brow creasing like he can’t understand how John can’t understand. “Most people see but they do not observe.”

“And you… observe?” John asks dubiously.

Sherlock is silent for a while, and John rolls his eyes and returns to his breakfast. It must be twenty or so seconds later that Sherlock speaks.

“I saw you practising your knowledge of herbs. Your knowledge of the sort of plants that would grow in rural areas, like district eight, was particularly high, higher than average. You also have stains on your skin that in district eight are unlikely to come from anywhere other than daily use of certain plant treatments, which given your apparent health despite none of these herbs currently on you, would suggest you’re not using them for yourself, even for narcotic reasons. Your skill with a bow and arrow implies you had previous knowledge, but that you had become rusty with disuse, otherwise you would have hit the central ring within your first two shots in the training centre. Having seen you closer afterward, I also noticed callouses on your fingers, which implied previous experience, though yes, they could have come from elsewhere. What good reason could you have had for stopping using a bow and arrow? It was possible that you stopped because you were worried about being caught by peacekeepers, but the unnecessary amount of extra time spent at the plants and berries station when you kept looking over to the bow and arrow implied a deep reluctance to go over, deeper than being worried about mere peacekeepers back at home. The most likely explanation was parent death. I could go on to explain about your sister, but I think you get the idea.”

“And the ‘hidden skill’?” John asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Well, I’m sure you must have one. Not for any particularly rational reason,” he admits, looking rather disappointed with himself, “other that the fact that when we were in the training room, you kept looking up to the ceiling, and I can’t think of any reason why you would do this unless it was related to something you weren’t meant to be showing. I had thought it might be a district eight thing, but I didn’t see Sarah do it even once.” Sherlock pauses. “So your skill involves something to do with height?”

“Maybe I’ll show you when we get to the arena,” John teases. Sherlock makes a low whining noise of discontentment. “Okay, okay. I know your skill so it’s only fair,” he laughs. “I… I can climb really well.” He shoves a spoonful of porridge into his mouth to hide his nervousness.

For a moment, Sherlock’s face contorts into a frown, but it passes quickly as he seems to have an epiphany. John is ridiculously glad that Sherlock did not do what he’d expected and said ‘You can climb?’ in a disbelieving, disappointed way.

“Excellent,” Sherlock says instead. “I’ve actually needed some help with some finer points in my own studies of that.”

John is shocked into silence for a moment.

“Such as?” John asks eventually, through the mouthful of porridge.

“Well, district five, like most districts is mainly woodland, and as such most of my climbing knowledge relates to trees. But since you come from district eight, all of your knowledge on the subject will be to do with buildings.”

“Yeah,” John says, pausing to take a sip of orange juice, “But what are the chances of some good buildings coming up? It’s more likely I’ll need some help from you with climbing in wooded areas.”

“We shouldn’t make assumptions,” Sherlock chastises. “The people of the 54th Hunger Games probably didn’t expect to be thrown into a medieval castle. Few would have prepared for it.”

“So you’re saying we’ve got to prepare for every single possible outcome?” John retorts.

“No,” Sherlock says, rolling his eyes. “But it seems pointless to rule out a skill that could be to our advantage, in a place that no other tribute would have prepared for.”

“Hmm,” John mutters disbelievingly and continues to steal Sherlock’s breakfast, since Sherlock himself doesn’t seem to want to eat it.  

 *****

“You must be one in a million,” John says suddenly.

“I’ve been told something of the sort, yes,” Sherlock replies without any hint of self-importance.

“No you prick,” John says, hitting him playfully on his arm. “I mean… Mayor’s brother. You must’ve had your name in about, what, five, six times?”

“Six,” Sherlock says blankly.

John sighs deeply. “The odds were not in your favour.”

“The odds are in no one’s favour,” Sherlock replies.

John looks out over the capital, the harsh neon lights blinding him momentarily. When his eyes finally adjust, on the building next to him, he can see that there’s a party going on, on the roof. From what he can make out, the partiers have the strange skin colours typical of the Capitol. It seems that the fashion trend this year is animals, as he can make out stripes of black and orange on one girl, leopard spots on a boy and green scales on another girl. John bets their eyes have been modified as well to complete the look. They all look horribly disfigured.

“Yeah,” John murmurs. “I think you’re right.”

Looking away from the bright lights, John steps towards the edge of the building, wondering how high the building is. He wonders if anyone in the Capitol’s ever jumped.

“Watch out for the field!” Sherlock warns suddenly, jerking John back by his wrist

“What are you—?” John snaps, yanking his wrist back from Sherlock and rubbing it mutinously. “I wasn’t going to jump you know!”

“I know,” Sherlock says calmly, turning and walking away from John and scouting for something on the floor.

“Then what the hell were you doing?”

Sherlock bends down and picks something up from the ground. He stands up again quickly, brushing himself down as though he’d instantly become covered in dust for some reason. John leans forward and sees that Sherlock’s holding a rock in his palm.

“What are you—?” John starts, but stops in a choked gasp as Sherlock takes a run up to the edge of the building, heart in his throat where for a moment he thinks Sherlock’s actually become so bored with everything he’s going to jump…

But Sherlock stops about a foot before the edge, and flings the rock from his hand. The rock hits an invisible barrier and sparks blue as it’s thrown backwards, away from the edge of the building, at a colossal speed. After a few second’s flight, it smashes into the door that leads to the roof and breaks into a hundred pieces. John’s jaw drops.

“Of course that wouldn’t quite happen to you; a rock is much smaller and less massive than you are, and is therefore easier to accelerate,” Sherlock says drily. “But you get the point.”

John is silent for a moment or two.

“There’s a force field,” he realises. “That’s what you meant… But how did you know?” John’s eyes widen, and he looks to Sherlock with worry. “You didn’t hit it did you? Before you showed me the roof?”

“No,” Sherlock says, a small grin playing on his lips.

He places himself behind John and directs John’s gaze, by placing his hands on either side of his head, to somewhere in the sky, up and to the left of where they’re standing.

“Look carefully,” Sherlock instructs. “What do you see?”

Not sure what he’s meant to be seeing, John rattles of a list of items in a bored and frustrated tone:

“Sky, a cloud, a hovercraft, the sun, capitol build— Wait…” He pauses as he thinks he sees what Sherlock wants him to see. “That glinting?”

John knows he’s got it, since Sherlock removes his hands from John’s face.

“That wavering square always follows a force field,” Sherlock says. “Spot it, and you spot a force field.”

John looks to the wavering square, and notes that it’s kinda out of a normal human’s line of vision.

“So did you spot that before or after you blundered into the force field?” he teases.

“Before!” Sherlock snaps, offended. Then he seems to realise John’s only teasing, and smiling adds, “Although, then I had to test my theory, but I’d hardly call that ‘blundering’.”

“You idiot,” John laughs, and Sherlock just grins back at him.

Looking at Sherlock’s smile, John feels free for the first time since before he can remember.

 *****

By the time the interviews come round, John has come to the conclusion that each of the events designed to give him sponsors are effectively punching him in the gut. And each time, he’s stood up, only to be knocked down again. But now, he’s going to try and roll with the punches. He’s not going to be caught off guard again.

Unsurprisingly he doesn’t get much advice from his mentors about the interviews. They give him some hints and tips, tell him to find an angle, but he’s very aware that they’ve dropped him for Sarah. Only one gets out in the end, and with disaster after disaster for him, it looks like it’s going to be her.

But it doesn’t matter because now he has Sherlock. Sherlock is damn infuriating sometimes, but he’s very intelligent and though he tries to hide it, John thinks that Sherlock actually cares a bit about him. And now Sherlock is the one giving him the advice to survive.

“Obviously you can’t do cute or sexy,” Sherlock says off-handedly.

“Appreciate that, thanks,” John remarks drily. Sherlock ignores him.

“You can’t do clever, or cocky.”

“Really glad I chose you as a team-mate,” John comments sarcastically. “You make me feel so special.”

“It’s a shame snarky can’t be an angle because you seem to have that down,” Sherlock retorts, but his eyes are glinting with amusement. “Right, throw your ‘mysterious’ at me.”

John goes into interview mode.

“Well Caesar, I don’t want to spoil anything, but I think you’ll wonder what the Gamemakers were thinking when they gave me the score they did.”

“Hmm,” Sherlock hums unsurely. “Probably not a good idea to imply that you’re stronger than they’ve made you out to be. Careers will see you as a threat.”

“Well Caesar, all I’ll say is I don’t think you should count me out just yet?” John tries.

“… Let’s try sympathetic.”

“What?”

“Oh come on,” Sherlock says with a roll of his eyes. “People seem to lap up all these emotional problems, and the Capitol especially. Tell me about your sister.”

“I don’t want to talk about my sister!” John snaps.

“Well if you can think of some other angle,” Sherlock replies.

John holds firm though, and he and Sherlock try several other angles before John relents, albeit grudgingly.

“I don’t want to tell those Capitol sheep all about my sister and mother and father,” John snaps.

“Well you have to, because that’s all we’ve got.”

“John?” a male voice calls.

Sherlock and John freeze. It’s John’s stylist. They’ve run out of time.

“Just imagine you’re telling me about them,” Sherlock suggests.

“But you already know most of it just by looking at me,” John says, frowning.

“Pretend you’re explaining how amazing my deductions were by telling me everything,” Sherlock says.

“There’s the arrogant prick I agreed to ally with,” John says, smiling. “I thought he’d disappeared.”

Sherlock ignores him, and John is dragged away to be fitted for his suit.

 *****

In retrospect, John doesn’t think he should be surprised. When Sherlock mentioned interviews, John had offered to help him, but Sherlock had told him that he already had his angle. John had wondered what it was, but otherwise paid it no thought.

“You don’t seem very interested in what’s going on around you,” Caesar comments. “Even with your training score you’re very relaxed about the whole thing. Do you have a reason for that?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replies, in a bored tone. “Everyone here is boring. The Games are boring. They won’t challenge me and I’ll be back in district five within a few days.”

Sherlock’s hand, which is thrown over the top of the chair casually, jerks slightly. Sherlock doesn’t really seem to notice, except for clenching and unclenching his fingers for a few seconds as he continues speaking. Odd. Sherlock’s not normally a twitchy kind of guy, John notes. Perhaps he’s got something heavy weighing on his mind.

 “You’re very confident for a man sitting on a one,” Caesar says, obviously hinting for an explanation.

“I showed the Gamemakers the skill that will get me through the Games. However, I don’t think they appreciated how I chose to show it. “

That’s when John realised what Sherlock must have done. He deduced the Gamemakers, and they didn’t like what they heard. And Sherlock paid the price.

Though, to be fair, one or twelve, Sherlock would have held the same indifference. At least a one makes him look less of a threat.

It’s torture waiting for his turn. When Sherlock leaves his interview, he comes to stand by John’s side. Neither of them speaks, and John’s glad that Sherlock seemed to sense that he didn’t want to talk. He’s finally called to the side of the stage when the girl from seven exits. When he starts to make his way over, Sherlock grabs his arm. John looks down at Sherlock’s hand, wrapped tight around his upper arm, and waits for Sherlock to explain.

“Just… Remember that you’re telling me.”

John nods, and Caesar calls him onto the stage. The lights are blinding, and he starts to feel a bit dizzy. He stumbles his way across to the chair where Caesar is waiting. John’s glad to see that his colour for this year is a soft pink. Some years Caesar has had colours so hideous that John found it difficult to watch the interview section.

“Woah,” Ceasar says, grabbing John’s arm as he falls into his seat. “Someone’s feeling a bit nervous, eh?”

John tries to speak, but his tongue is clogging up his throat. Thousands of eyes are on him, piercing and cold.

Sherlock. He’s speaking to Sherlock.

“Yeah, well I really need this to go well,” he laughs.

“Mmm,” Caesar hums, “I can imagine. You got someone back home you’re hoping to see again?”

“My sister,” John chokes. “I— I told her I’m not helpless. That I’d try to win.”

“So she’s waiting for you back home?”

John twists his token, the checkered strip of fabric Harry gave him, around his wrist nervously.

“I— I don’t think she is.” John swallows and forces himself to continue, “You see, she had a friend once. She got chosen for the Games.” He draws in a shuddering breath and forces himself not to start tearing up, thinking about her. “And her friend was one of the strongest, bravest and feisty people in district eight. But she got torn to ribbons by a district six boy who found her hidden by the river.” John draws in another deep breath to keep him going. “Harry was so convinced that Clara was coming back that when she died she just… Stopped. She didn’t do anything for months. She was an empty shell. Though she was young… I think that she was in love with Clara, though she never told me. And I think… I think she doesn’t want to set herself up for that again.”

There’s a collective ‘aww’ from the audience and a few sniffs.

“Is that from her?” Caesar asks, pointing to his token. John nods.

“Clara gave it to her before she left. Harry said, ‘Maybe now this thing can be used for something other than mourning.’” John pauses and then adds, “But I think she really gave it to me for closure. So that she could accept my death in the way that she hadn’t been able to accept Clara’s.”

“So you’re trying to get back to her?” Caesar confirms.

“I want to get back before she self-destructs. I’ve always been worried about her. She’s the sort who will always find the most dangerous thing to do, and despite all warnings, do it.” John laughs, but it hurts. “She once made this thing out of some wood and wheels that she could ride on. She got about two feet down the street before the thing flipped and she went flying. She was in our infirmary for a week!”

The audience laughs.

“And what about your parents?”

“My dad’s a healer, and I help him out a lot, so there’s a lot that I know that I couldn’t exactly show in the private session,” he grins. Then his face falls. “My mum… She taught me everything I know about shooting. I think she might come down here herself and kill me if she saw me miss a shot.” He manages a feeble smile.

The audience laughs.

“So you want to get back to them too then? Need to help your dad out at the shop, right?” Caesar chuckles.

“Well, yeah I want to get back to my dad. And my mum. I guess whatever happens, I’ll see one of them again.”

Caesar pauses, then says softly, “I see.”

John thinks he hears some sobbing from somewhere in the audience. Just then the buzzer goes.

“Well, I’m sorry John, but it’s time for you to leave. I wish you the best of luck.”

“Don’t worry Caesar,” John says, managing to force a grin. “I don’t think I need luck.”

And for the first time since he got here, it feels like things are starting to go right.


	3. Where We Belong

It’s all come much too fast. He’s grabbed by a woman and ordered not to move while she injects his tracker. There’s a sharp sting as the needle pierces his flesh, but he tries his hardest not to resist it. He wishes he could resist; he hardly wants the Gamemakers to know where he is constantly, but it’s not up to him in the end.

He’s dragged to the Stockyard next, where his stylist and his clothes are waiting for him. When he opens the package containing his clothes, he doesn’t get much hint from the clothes as to where he’ll be. A black tight fitting long-sleeved shirt, and the same material trousers. His stylist notes that the clothes are designed to reflect his heat back to him, so unless they’re trying an innovative new way to kill tributes, John assumes that they’re not going to end up somewhere like a desert. Well, he’s sure it’s not an arctic tundra, as the material of the clothing isn’t good enough to keep him warm at all if that’s the case. Besides, they very rarely have Games without trees these days, after some of the past times when tributes have simply frozen to death. Not exciting enough for them.

John turns to the table of food beside him and forces himself to eat. The little extra fat and calories could make the difference.

“Prepare for launch,” a cool female voice announces. “Tributes, please step onto the plate.”

Heart hammering in his chest, John follows her instructions. He tries to slow his heartbeat down by focusing on something else.

Water. He needs to find water first. And then Sherlock. He and Sherlock agreed a rough direction to meet at a rough time. It’s not perfect, but at least they’re both aware that their plans for the Cornucopia will likely involve them getting separated. Hopefully they’ll be able to find each other again.

John stumbles as the metal plate under his feet starts to move. He feels a little claustrophobic as he’s plunged into darkness. But after about ten seconds, light explodes around him and he blinks rapidly, trying to adjust.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the sixty seventh Hunger Games!” Claudius Templesmith announces.

They now have sixty seconds to formulate final plans before all hell breaks loose.

John’s eyes have finally adjusted to the light, and he looks out at the arena, feeling all the breath from his body escape at once.

He starts to laugh. The tributes nearby look at him, torn between worry and fear, because his laughter sounds completely insane, and without reason. He keeps laughing. He laughs and laughs until he wants to cry.  

Maybe the Gamemakers understood what he needed, or maybe they just underestimated him and made a fatal error. Either way, John doesn’t care. Because now he has something he hasn’t had for a long time.

Hope. Because the arena staring back at him is neither jungle, nor forest. In fact, it is something that no other tribute will have prepared for. It is something he can thrive in.

The arena is a derelict city, looking for all intents and purposes just like district eight back home, bar the sliver of forest he can see out of the corner of his eye. And if there’s one thing he knows how to do, better than almost any other tribute here, it’s survive in a place where, for the most part, wildlife and plants appear almost non-existent.  

There’s not much time left. John turns his gaze to the Cornucopia. The objects at the centre are obviously the most desirable, but even he agreed with his mentors that he was not in a position to fight for them. He decides to cut across the main section so that he can get something of some use, without venturing too far into the danger zone. Then he’ll run up the road to the left and ahead of him. There are about eight roads leading out, so hopefully it’ll be unlikely that someone will follow him. Even if they do, he can probably get out of the way enough to scale up one of the buildings, getting out of the way, and not showing to the competition one of the main skills that will hopefully get him out alive.

John readies himself for the gong. After a few seconds, it rings, and John sprints off the plate. He ducks and rolls as one of the tributes who was next to him attempts to knock him out. He doesn’t stop moving, just rolls right up to keep running. He hears a cut off scream from behind him, where he’d just been. John catches sight of a backpack ahead of him and grabs it as he runs past. He can see his escape route, but out of the corner his eye he spies a set of beautiful and deadly arrows, glinting silver, and a bow to go with them, near the centre of the Cornucopia. The temptation is almost too great, but he forces himself to keep running. What use are the bow and arrows if he’s dead.

He grabs another backpack on the far side of the Cornucopia, almost at the end. He’s damn lucky that he’s a fast runner or this plan never would have worked. He hikes the first backpack over his shoulder and puts the second one behind his head. Holding it there slows him a little, but better that than to get caught by a knife to the head.

He’s both very aware of the fact that, to his knowledge, he has no weapon, and that he has no idea where Sherlock is, or if he’s even alive. He really hopes so. The weapon may be a problem later, but hopefully if he meets up with Sherlock, then Sherlock will have something to spare. If not, he’s sure he can figure out some way of getting one, even if it means grabbing one from a dead tribute before they’re taken away by hovercraft.

He’s glad to see that there are alleyways and roads between the buildings. He starts to zigzag through them, so as to hopefully lose any would-be killers. He thinks he’d better stop soon or he’ll have no way of finding where he’s supposed to meet Sherlock. Then again, all roads lead to the Cornucopia. Maybe that’ll help him find his way if he has trouble.

Finally, sure he has no one on his trail, he dives down a dark alleyway and kicks off from the wall and makes a grab for a windowsill. He hoists himself up and pushes himself off again, this time grabbing for a strange steel contraption hanging against the wall. He continues like this till he reaches the top of one building, and he then topples over the side, breathing heavily. He can finally relax for five minutes.

It was probably a good thing he ate before all that. At least now he’s not even hungry.

It’s past midday, and it’s likely the cannon shots will start any second. Probably a good idea to start checking the backpacks.

The first one, black with a small white ‘x’ etched into the strap on one side, doesn’t hold any weapons. He’s not too surprised; this was the one he pulled from near the edge of the Cornucopia. However inside it does contain: a small bottle of iodine, a silver flask with nothing in it, two packets of crackers, a couple of slices of cheese, a jar of something light brown that he doesn’t recognise and some flint.

He’s cut off from opening the second one by the loud boom of a cannon. So the fighting’s finally stopped. He starts to count the cannon blasts, foolishly hoping that twenty-two cannon blasts go off. Of course, that would lead to an entirely new problem of him and Sherlock being the only remaining tributes.

John swallows nervously. He and Sherlock haven’t touched upon what’s going to happen if it falls down to the two of them, or if they’ll break the alliance before then. Truth be told, at the time it hadn’t seemed that important, but now that it’s an impending reality, it feels like he should have asked.

Ten cannon shots in all. Just under half dead. Just over half remaining. Ten people. John racks in a deep breath. What are the chances he can sit here and hope that someone else picks the others off, one by one? He feels a twinge in his stomach once again as he remembers Sherlock.

He really doesn’t think he can kill Sherlock. Yes, he gets angry at him, and could probably do with socking him in the jaw at least once, but kill him?

He’d like to think that Sherlock couldn’t kill him either. Then again, people always change in the arena.

Perhaps the decision will be taken out of his hands. He snorts; maybe that mousy girl from eleven will turn out to be a killing machine. Unlikely though.

‘The mousy girl’. John puts his head in his hands and tries not to groan. Oh, he knows what he’s doing. He can remember almost every tribute by name, and yet he’s never referred to them by it. It’s supposed to make it easier, to help him forget that these are people in the arena that have to die in order for him to survive, people with families, friends, lovers. But it’s becoming dangerous; if he’s not careful it will reach a point where he doesn’t even recognise them as humans, just things to be slaughtered. He would hope it won’t ever reach that point, but he’s learnt in history classes that sometimes it can be all too easy.

So he vows from now on to call every tribute by name, if he can remember it.

Molly. Molly might turn out to be a killing machine.

The sky is darkening. It’s not enough for the Capitol to start listing the dead, but it means that the other tributes are likely to be slowing down. John looks around. He can’t see anyone, but being on top of a several story building, it’s not saying a lot.

Maybe he should start looking for Sherlock now. They agreed to meet at sunrise on the second day, both aware that it could take them a while to get back to each other and giving themselves time for that. But they also agreed that at the earliest convenience would be the best time to actually be there, so whatever happens, one of them is likely to have to wait. It might as well be him.

John squints over at the setting sun. They agreed to meet in the west, as they would likely be travelling in the morning, and thought it wouldn’t be great to have the sun in their faces the whole journey. John is particularly glad for this now, as he appears to have headed in a westward direction. He needs to head a bit to his right and — John pauses to check behind him, to where he can see the road next to him broaden where the Cornucopia lies — a little bit backwards. Only a small amount mind; he and Sherlock were well aware that the careers would inevitably take control of the Cornucopia and they don’t want to stumble too close to their hunting grounds.

John sizes up the distance between his building and the one across the road. It’s too big for him to jump, so he’s going to have to find some other way across, hopefully one that involves his feet never touching the floor.

Perhaps now would be a good time to check his second backpack. He frowns as he picks it up. This one is grey and has three small black marks on one of the straps. He’s sure it must have some meaning, but he’s not sure what it could be.

He shrugs to himself, and opens the backpack. What’s inside makes him grin. He must have cut close enough to the Cornucopia to get something like this. The first thing he sees, lying on top of the rest of the stuff, is a gold hilted knife, with the carving of a wolf on the handle. It looks deadly sharp and—

Ah! John drops it hurriedly. Damn thing sliced his finger open like it was warm butter. Well, it looks like he was very lucky to get a hold of this. He pauses thoughtfully. Perhaps this backpack had a specific recipient in mind? If so, it certainly wasn’t him, that’s for sure. Maybe he should feel guilty about possibly taking someone’s specially crafted weapon, but then again, he’s rather glad that whoever’s it is doesn’t get to use it against him. That wouldn’t be an easy fight, and he might not have come out on the other side of it.

Underneath, there’s a black package with a label on it. John squints at it, trying to read the writing in the dying light. Unfortunately it’s too dark, so he sets that aside. Then there’s a sleeping bag made of thin material, but it feels sort of like the heat reflecting material he’s currently wearing, so hopefully it will be good for cold nights. Then— John holds back a laugh of glee. He can’t believe his luck. A bottle of water. True, it’s small, but this means that he can hold up longer without having the intense pressure of finding a water source.

Next, there’s a long length of rope. And finally, at the bottom, two throwing knives.

John’s starting to feel antsy. Whoever this backpack ‘belonged’ to, it seems likely that the Gamemakers expected them to be very adept at using dangerous weapons. Perhaps he should work out whom the backpack was supposed to go to, simply for the sake of avoiding them.

He sighs. Nothing he can do about it now though. Best to get moving, towards Sherlock. So how to cross the gap between the buildings, where it’s too far for him to jump?

John looks down at the rope from the backpack, and then over to the gap, and grins. He makes a slip knot with the rope and tosses the rope over the edge of the building, aiming to get the knot over one of the pipes he can see on the building across the road.

He misses. And he misses again. He growls, and tries again. This time he gets the knot over, but when he tries to tighten the knot, this hitches it up slightly and it falls off. He tugs the rope back in a tries one more time.

Success! He tightens the rope, and it stays hooked over the pipe. With a grin, John grabs both his backpacks, stuffing everything inside and zipping them, and hoists them over his shoulders. He steadies himself and calmly counts to ten. Nothing worse than the day to day building jumping he does back in district eight.

He jumps. It sets his heart racing and he has to hold back a scream of joy and terror, because that’s definitely going to bring the Careers running. Halfway to the other building though, he hears a crack. He jerks his head up, but he can’t see where it came from. Shit, was that the pipe? How weak could it be?

The rope slips downwards, bringing John with it, and shit, the pipe’s cracked. But he’s almost at the other building, if he can just hold on long enough to grab the window ledge…

His hand closes around it and his arm wrenches painfully as the rope tries to swing him back again. He hauls himself onto the window ledge, and it’s just about wide enough for him to stand on safely. He tries to hitch the rope over the broken pipe but it’s stuck. He sighs and starts to wall jump up the building till he’s on the roof.

He jogs over to check the rope and pipe. The pipe’s bent over and touches the edge of the roof, making a closed loop. John breathes a sigh of relief; he hadn’t actually been in danger, as the pipe hadn’t broken, just bent. Something to be more careful about in the future though. He unties the slip knot around the pipe and gathers all the rope up.

Luckily the road he just crossed was the only one he needed to cross to get roughly to his and Sherlock’s meeting point. All he needs to do is head a few buildings back to the Cornucopia. John would start heading further towards it now, but the sun has slipped below the horizon, and while he can see, it’s not as much as he’d like if he’s going to be throwing himself off buildings without knowing the terrain. Also, he didn’t get a good look at the surrounding buildings, and it’d be nice to be able to find his way back to somewhere in case he gets lost, so it’s probably best to stay put for the moment.

Out of nowhere, the hears the anthem starts up and John freezes, heart pounding. Oh god, he’s not ready. He hasn’t been thinking about this moment because there’s one thought that won’t stop running through his head. What if Sherlock’s face flashes up on the screen? His scream will bring the careers running.

John places a hand over his mouth, and looks up to the sky. The boy from two is dead. John raises an eyebrow. That’s very surprising; normally the careers all make it through. The girl from three. And… John blinks a couple of times to check he’s seeing correctly; the girl from four is dead. Two careers on the first day. John doesn’t think that’s ever happened before.

Then it’s the girl from five. John winces, but also lets out a sigh of relief. Yes, he hadn’t really spoken to her, but she was from Sherlock’s district and John’s sure she was the one people wanted to win. The mentors definitely had favoured her. But sad as it is, at least it now means that Sherlock has a better chance of winning, assuming there’s anyone willing to sponsor him.

Both from six are dead, not much of a surprise. Girl from nine. That means that couple from seven made it though, presumably together, and that means Sarah is still alive. John swallows nervously.

Boy from ten. Both from twelve.

Jesus. Both from twelve isn’t much of a surprise. He wonders if they’d died together, as friends or whatever it was they were to each other. Maybe that was for the best. Dying with the people you loved.

He grits his teeth and removes his hand from his mouth. Sherlock’s not dead, that’s all that matters. Now he just has to find him tomorrow, and everything will turn out okay.

 *****

When he wakes up, something feels wrong. He can’t put his finger on it, but his heart’s pounding and he instinctively feels he has to move, now. Which is strange, because being on top of a building with no obvious way to get up, he should be perfectly safe.

It’s that thought which makes his thoughts immediately turn to Sherlock. Sherlock must be nearby.

John leaps for the edge of the building, holding himself back just enough that he doesn’t fall over. He looks up and down the street and can’t see anything out of the ordinary, at least for a Hunger Games.

Wait.

Sherlock is sprinting down the street, girl chasing after him and she’s carrying… Shit, she’s brandishing a knife! If only he’d taken those damn arrows he’d seen at the Cornucopia, he could take her out right now, no problem. Goddamn it what does he do!

John reaches for his pack and pulls out the first thing he finds. He squints at it. It’s the knife with the golden wolf-like handle. He can’t use that, it seems to… extravagant. It doesn’t seem right for the task. John digs deeper into the pack and pulls out the two other knives. Swallowing nervously, he realises it’s going to have to do.

He only had a brief practise at the knife throwing, when he’d thought that perhaps it was better to have a mediocre knowledge of many things, than excellent knowledge of a few. Though he’d changed his mind pretty quickly, he’s glad he at least has a little something to go on.

He aims, Sherlock and the girl getting closer and closer to his spot. He aims for her head, trying to take into account her movements and speed. He draws in a deep breath, and throws. A few seconds later he hears a cry of pain and a curse. He peeks over the edge of the building at the girl, assessing how he did.

He missed her head. But luckily, he managed to get the knife jammed in the calf of her leg, and it’s caused her enough pain to temporarily stop. She soon starts running again, but luckily seems to realise that pulling the knife out will make her bleed out quicker. Lucky because otherwise she’d have a weapon to throw at Sherlock and kill him, without losing her only protection for the few moments that could mean her death.

No time to waste though. He grabs the other throwing knife from his backpack and races down the building in record time, using the strange black metal stairs on the outside of the building to help swing himself down as fast as possible. He hits the ground running, chasing the girl with fierce determination. He refuses to have himself come so close only to lose Sherlock now.

The girl’s limp has thankfully slowed her down a lot. John can see Sherlock in the distance, and feels relief trickle through his veins because he is well out of range of the girl now. It’s up to John now.

He has one shot to make this, but he also doesn’t want her aware that she’s being followed, so he has to strike the delicate balance of getting close enough to get a sure hit, but not so close she’ll hear him behind her. He eyes his target, trying to work out where to hit. They’re both running, so it’s going to be difficult to get a defined hit. As such, he decides not to aim for the head, because though that would give the surest chance of death if he hit, it relies too much on him managing to hit a rather small moving target while he is moving as well. He decides to go for the back.

He draws back his arm and throws with as much force as he can muster. The girl lets out a surprised shriek and collapses to the ground. It takes him a few seconds to catch up to her twitching body.

Bullseye.

She tries to make a move towards him, snarling, but she’s obviously in too much pain. She collapsed on her back when the knife hit, wedging his knife further into her body, and going by the blood trickling out of her mouth, it looks like one of her lungs has been punctured.

He pulls the knife from her leg out and she screams and curses him. He doesn’t spend any time debating his humanity or morals; he simply stabs her throat, digging the knife from side to side to get a good hole. He would have slit her throat, neater and kinder really, but the throwing knife doesn’t have the ridged edges or the sharpness that he’d need to slice into her skin. She tries to speak, glaring at him, but all that happens is bubbles of blood form at the knife in her throat. The cold fury in her eyes should unsettle him, but all he can think about is how Sherlock is now safe. He lets out a sigh of relief.

He remembers for a moment the conversation he had with his sister, back in the velvet room, about whether he could kill. Turns out he has no problems with killing as long as it is saving Sherlock’s life.

There’s the boom of a cannon, and John looks down to check it was for the girl. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused now, but they still appear filled with rage.

Even having saved Sherlock’s life, he feels guilty that he did not know the girl’s name. She was one of the few whose names he’d never learnt or heard. Perhaps that was why it was so easy to kill her.

John jerks his head up as he hears slow, careful footsteps approaching. His face breaks into a grin as he sees Sherlock, but then his smile falls as he takes a closer look at Sherlock.

Sherlock’s acquired a black eye, and his lip is split and bleeding, marking a line down from his mouth to his chin. Sherlock doesn’t seem bothered about it though. He reaches over his shoulder to a strap, and hoists something on his back over his head. He hands it to John, and he gives a lopsided smile, looking proud of himself. John looks down at it briefly. It’s a quiver of arrows, and a bow.

John feels the urge to cry well up in him, but instead he grins and pulls Sherlock into a bone-crushing hug, his fingers digging into Sherlock’s shirt, and he hugs like he never wants to let go.

“Yes, well, let’s not get all sentimental,” Sherlock drawls, but when John pulls back from the hug, he sees that Sherlock is still smiling.

John glances down at the arrows again and then does a double take. What he’d first thought must be a collection of mediocre arrows were not that at all. They were glinting silver. Sherlock had handed him the deadly silver arrows that he saw in the middle of the Cornucopia, a place he’d considered far too dangerous to go in order to get a few arrows.

Sherlock fought his way through the Cornucopia to get these for him. He looks up at Sherlock’s bleeding lip, and wonders if this is why he looks so bad.   

“You idiot!” John snaps, punching Sherlock’s arm. “You went into the middle of the fighting to get me these stupid arrows, didn’t you? Is that why you’re injured?”

“You needed them,” Sherlock said with a shrug.

“You… You infuriating—” John’s rage is one born out of care and love, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. “You could have been killed just to get me some stupid arrows!”

“Nevertheless,” Sherlock replies calmly, “I did not, and now we have some proper weaponry in order to defend ourselves.”

“Did you get anything for yourself?”

“… No,” Sherlock admits. “But,” he adds, “I will be with you, and you are more than adequate with a bow and arrow. I don’t need to protect myself.”

John doesn’t dignify that with a response. He looks over to the dead girl, and back up to the buildings. He sighs, and goes to retrieve his knives from the girl. Pulling them out is more difficult than he thought, and he has to brace himself to do it. Perhaps they somehow got wedged into some cartilage or caught between the bones.

“Come on,” he says, gesturing to the building next to them. “All the buildings on this side have this weird metal stairway that we can use to get up to the top. I wanna check your ability out before I have you wall jumping or anything. Seems a bit of a stupid way to go.”

John uses one of the walls to launch himself up, so that he can grab the ladder currently several feet off the ground but connected to the stairway, which will enable Sherlock to get up onto it. John leans over the metal banister and beckons Sherlock up the ladder. Sherlock looks mildly displeased, as though he is offended that John thought he had to do that for him, but he doesn’t comment.

They start to climb up the stairway, John pausing every so often to check how much further they have to go. At one point he looks back to see a hovercraft taking the young girl’s body away, and he tastes bitterness in his mouth.

It was for Sherlock. He saved Sherlock.

“I think it’s called a fire escape,” Sherlock says out of the blue, when they are about three quarters of the way up.

“What?” John asks, frowning.

“The metal stairs. I think this is called a fire escape.” He pauses and adds drily, “The Capitol of course do not find it necessary for us to have these, but back when the rulers cared about public safety, I think these were used to help people get out of their… Building, if they couldn’t get out the normal way.”

“In case of fire?” John guesses.

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, “though it seems to be that they can be used for much more than simply escaping fire, but I suppose the name will do.”

Hmmm. A fire escape. John looks down over the edge, looking at how far below the ground is. Personally, he has to agree with the pre-Capitol people. He’s heard nowadays, in the Capitol itself where they care about the death of the inhabitants, that they have a strange life-jacket system, where in order to escape fire, you put it on and jump off the building. The life jacket inflates and both slows down the descent and cushions you when you hit the ground. Going down a metal staircase on the outside of a building sounds far preferable.

John heaves a sigh of relief when they reach the top. He looks out across the scenery, and realises he can’t decide whether the dead city is beautiful or terrifying. The Gamemakers do their job well it seems.

John turns back to Sherlock, who is watching him curiously, and says, “I need to go get my stuff. I left it a few buildings back. Like I said before, I don’t know your ability yet, so just stay here, okay.”

Sherlock looks like he wants to complain, but realises that it is not optional. John has already made the decision.

John places his bow down on the floor, hikes the sheath of arrows over his head and places it next to the bow. If he’s going to be jumping and rolling, he hardly want to take these with him. He’s going to have to figure out a way to make sure the arrows stay inside the sheath when he comes back, or else he’ll have a problem when he and Sherlock press on. He then hands Sherlock the two throwing knives. Sherlock doesn’t want to take them, but John presses them into his hands until he relents.

John smiles to himself and turns to face the direction of the building with all his stuff. He sprints for the other side of the building without fear, and as he leaps off the edge of the building, he feels for a moment like he’s flying. The buildings in district eight are nowhere near as high as the ones in this section of the arena. It makes him feel like a bird. It amuses him because the freest he’s ever felt is when he’s been the most trapped.

He ducks into a roll as he nears the other building. There are structures on the roof of this building, strange silver metal things and he’s not sure what they do. It doesn’t matter though, because once he’s returned from his roll to running again, he uses a series of the metal things to leap on to a doorway with a slight passage behind it, which presumably leads down into the building. From the door, he cats onto the side of the next building. It’s invigorating finally feeling as though the path he is taking is challenging his abilities. Back in district eight, there were limited opportunities to get a good workout for his skills like this.

That does remind him though, that he only has a limited energy source with which to do these moves. Once he returns to Sherlock, they are going to have to move to the next segment of the arena and then get clear of the where the girl died. He’s sure that she was district two. Why she wasn’t with the rest of the Career tributes, he doesn’t know, but they will probably come looking for her. Unless for some reason she’d left them. In this stage of the game, it seems unlikely though.

He hoists himself onto the final building, where his belongings lie. No one’s been up here, he’s sure, but the easy access of it still makes him uncomfortable. He goes to the edge of the building, to where the golden hilted knife lies. Warily, he picks it up and puts it in the grey backpack, zipping it up and pulling it over his shoulders. The contents of the black backpack are strewn across the rooftop. He collects it all up slowly and dumps it into the backpack. He puts that backpack over his shoulders too, though it takes a little more effort.

When he finally returns to Sherlock, he’s panting heavily and he has to sit down by the edge of the building.

“Are you okay?” Sherlock asks, looking alarmed.

“Yeah,” John gasps out through ragged breaths. “Just… A lotta work and… I haven’t eaten since… the Games started.”

“Eat now then,” Sherlock says easily, and John glares at him.

“Hadn’t thought of that,” he replies bitingly. “Sherlock I… haven’t had a chance yet to hunt.” His breathing’s evening out, but it still feels like there’s something in his throat that he needs to swallow down and his mouth’s too dry to do so.

Very warily, he reaches for the grey backpack and uncaps the small bottle of water inside. He only takes a small sip, but he does feel better. He’s going to have to make sure they find some more water though. Slightly unwillingly, he offers it to Sherlock, but Sherlock refuses, aware that John only broke into the precious supply because of the work he’d been doing.

“Come on,” John says after a few moments. “We’d better get across to the other buildings.”

He takes out the rope and loops it, then scans across the building opposite them for something to hook it over. He finally spots some sort of chimney on the edge of the building. It only takes him two tries this time to get the slip knot over the object, and he tests it lightly with his weight once it’s tightened. It seems to hold.

“Okay, it’s not too difficult,” John explains quickly. “Just don’t hit the building, and once you find something to grab onto, grab it, but brace yourself for the pull-back.”

Sherlock looks bored with his explanations and waves John on. Warily, John makes the leap. When he’s reached the other side and pulled himself up to the roof of the building, he swings the rope back to Sherlock. Sherlock has to lean dangerously close to the edge to catch it. John doesn’t relax until Sherlock is standing next to him.

John tucks the rope away in the backpack. He feels so drained of energy that even though he thinks they should travel further, he tells Sherlock that they should sleep on the roof they’re on. Sherlock agrees, but John thinks he agrees for John more for his sake. After all, it’s still the middle of the day.

Arms heavy, John pulls the sleeping bag from the grey backpack, and lays it out. Before he crawls inside, he tosses Sherlock a cracker from their precious supply. They’re going to have to find somewhere to hunt before the food runs out.

Tucked inside the cosy sleeping bag, John beckons for Sherlock. Sherlock slides in next to him and they fall asleep together. Or at least, John assumes they do, because he’s out after only a few seconds.


	4. This Love, This Hate

It’s the crash that wakes him. In a blind panic, John isn’t thinking about anything other than the fact that he knows he and Sherlock need to run, _now,_ in the same way he knew the other day (or was it earlier that day? Either he and Sherlock have slept a whole day, or only a few hours, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it now) that Sherlock was in danger and he had to save him.

He wriggles out of the sleeping bag, trying to wake Sherlock as he goes, and he runs over to the backpack with the rope. He takes a few seconds to look over the possible hooks on the building opposite them.

As he swings the rope over to the other building, there’s a scream of rage from somewhere below them.

_Idiot!_ he berates himself. These buildings obviously had intact stairs all the way up and someone from the careers had found the girl’s trail of blood and followed them up to this building.

John looks back to Sherlock who’s awake now. Luckily he seemed to have packed up the backpacks before they fell asleep, so he gestures for Sherlock to grab the black one next to him, while John takes the grey one.

The career is drawing ever closer, going by the smashing and stomping sounds. John looks to Sherlock in a panic. He wants to test the rope’s security by swinging across first, but he wants Sherlock safe too, which means that Sherlock should go first. He’s torn in half. Which is the better option?

It’s remembering Sherlock’s reaction to the knife that John had forced into his hands yesterday, and the fact that he’d found Sherlock running from the district two tribute that swings the vote. With Sherlock, it seems that flight beats fight every time.

He shoves the rope into Sherlock’s hands.

“Go!” he orders. With only a slight hesitation, Sherlock jumps. It takes him a while to pull himself up onto the roof, and by the time he does, the career seems to have reached the floor below them.

“Throw it back!” John calls, even though he knows that Sherlock knows. He just feels helpless.

The rope swings languidly back towards him, and the second he’s grabbed it and prepared to launch off, the door to the roof slams open.

“Eight!” the career hisses.

John doesn’t wait to hear why that word is filled with so much hate. He jumps, and hears the scream of rage from the career as he sails towards the building across the road. It takes him only a few seconds to make his way up to the top of the building.

The second his feet hit the surface of the roof, he pulls his bow form his shoulder and notches his first arrow. It was a good call, because the career snarling on the other building is preparing to throw a spear.

They’re caught in a stalemate. They would hit each other at the same time.

The Gamemakers, strangely enough, are what break the stalemate.

The building he and Sherlock are standing on rumbles and wobbles, so much that John loses his balance for a moment, and he accidently releases his arrow. He glances up, panicked, as he watches the look of horror spread across the career’s face. John had aimed for his throat, but the movement of the building threw him off.

But John doesn’t get to see then where the arrow sticks, because the building beneath him suddenly disintegrates and shrinks into a two storey house. His feet are still on the roof, but he wasn’t prepared for the sudden change. His feet slip on the tiles, and he falls over and slides down the roof. He grabs onto a draining system on the edge of the roof to stop his fall.

“Sherlock?” he calls worriedly.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock replies from somewhere behind the house. John breathes a sigh of relief.

He looks up to the career on the tall building, who’s crying out in pain. John winces in sympathy as he makes out where his arrow hit. He’d been aiming for the throat, but the building had jogged him, and the arrow had instead pierced the career’s eye and buried itself somewhere inside his brain. He’s never going to see out of that eye again.

“Come on!” Sherlock calls, and John follows the sound of his voice, down to the ground. Sherlock is pointing to the building spread out across the entirety of the next section, across the road.

John looks back momentarily to check on the career. He’s disappeared. John feels a jolt of panic run through him, and he grabs Sherlock’s hand.

“Run!” he instructs, and they sprint across the road together.

As they approach the building ahead of them, they’re not sure what to do. It’s large and grey, but other than that it’s completely different to the previous buildings they’d found.

“We’ve got to find the entrance,” John mutters.

Sherlock gives him a bored look that seems to say something like, ‘I never would have guessed’. Filled to the brim with sarcasm of course.

John scans across the scenery but he can’t see any. Luckily, Sherlock does. Sherlock grabs John’s hand and drags him towards where he’s presumably seen a door.

When John finally sees it, he feels nervous. The glass of the door has been smashed, and it looks dark inside. But then he remembers the rage of the career, drawing ever closer, and he steps through the broken door pane. Sherlock follows behind him.

John shivers, even though it’s not cold inside the building. He looks around, eyes adjusting to the darkness.

“What’s a…” he trails off as he squints at the letters, “Walmart?”

“What?” Sherlock says, whipping around to try and see what John’s reading.

“There,” John says, pointing. “On that map thing, it says ‘Walmart’ in huge letters, like it’s important or something.”

Sherlock grabs John’s wrist and pulls him over to the map. Sherlock pours over it eagerly.

“This must be some kind of market,” Sherlock guesses. “It doesn’t look like the markets back home but I think that’s what it must be. A pre-capitol market. Back when people thought they needed things like…” Sherlock squints at the map. “Books and CDs and trinkets.”

“Wait, Sherlock,” John says slowly, realisation hitting him. “If this is some kind of market, maybe there’s food here.”

“You think the Gamemakers would just leave a source of food ripe for the taking?”

“I think that they might put it somewhere where no one would think to look until it was too late,” John says carefully. “I imagine they would love to see the look on a starving tribute’s face when they find a hoard of stale and mouldy food.”

Sherlock thinks this over for a few seconds. John uses that time to look at the map, not having forgotten that they are still likely being chased. He wants to commit the map to memory as best as possible. 

“We might as well try,” Sherlock eventually announces. “I think Walmart might be our best bet, as it’s the biggest shop in here according to the map. Besides, we can check in other shops on the way there.”

They set off as soon as the decision is made. As they get closer and closer to Walmart, the darkness recedes little by little, but it leaves an eerie artificial lighting in its place. John thinks he preferred the dark.

When they find the Walmart, John can see through the entrance a section that was definitely once filled with food. Whether it still is remains to be seen.

He quickens his step. He heads towards some strange open containers that look a little bit like rectangular baths and he peeks over the edge of one. There’s a puddle of water lying at the bottom, and in the puddle are several packages of rancid meat. The meat has gone green with mould in some places, and the sight makes John feel a little ill.

“Well we were definitely too late for this,” John mutters. “Might be something else around though.”

His thoughts are interrupted by a girl’s warhunt screams and John looks to the sound with wild eyes. He’s caught off-guard at the sight of a small girl sprinting towards him and gets knocked to the floor when she hits him. She grabs a package of the rancid meat and tears it open.

“Thief!” she screams. “Liars and sinners!”

John holds up his hands in surrender and desperately says, “I didn’t take any of it, I don’t want it, it’s yours!”

The girl relaxes slightly, eyes darting between him and Sherlock. She picks up the piece of meat and crudely tears it in two. She smiles at the smaller piece and shoves it into her mouth greedily. John tries very hard not to throw up.

“Delicious,” she grins, teeth pointed and bloody. A man appears behind her, and she hands him the bigger piece of meat, and he swallows it down as eagerly as she did. It’s the sight of the man that kick-starts John’s brain.

He actually knows these tributes. He didn’t recognise the girl at first because her face had been contorted in rage and caked in dirt, and he’d been focusing more on the mould covered meat she’d been putting in her mouth, but seeing them together does it.

District eleven, Molly and Greg.

John swallows down the lump in his throat. What on Earth happened to them? Granted, he didn’t know either of them spectacularly well, but eagerly eating rancid meat was definitely not something he’d ever considered of them.

“Molly?” he asks, half for confirmation. “Greg?”

Molly nods suspiciously and says, “Days before sin.”

Greg adds, “Before blood.”

John looks back at Sherlock who is observing Molly and Greg, intrigued.

“Uh, look guys,” John says awkwardly. “We were looking for some kind of food — not meat!” he adds hurriedly as Molly clutches the empty packet in her hands closer to her, and growls at him. “Do you know if there’s any here?”

“Dying bread,” Molly says, and points to somewhere past the meat section of the shop. “Otherwise empty.”

“The Gamemakers presumably didn’t want anything here that could keep for a long time. That’d make things too easy,” John surmises.

Sherlock wanders over towards where Molly had pointed and starts choosing breads.

“Molly, we’ve also got someone on our tail. Know where we can hide?”

It’s a bit of a long shot, but he might as well ask. He’s not prepared for Molly to grin and point to Greg, who produces a key from around his neck.

Sherlock returns empty handed, and when John raises his eyebrows in question, Sherlock gestures to his backpack.

“There wasn’t a huge variety. I took all the stale ones, which were the best ones. There were several mouldy loaves.”

“Well at least we got som—” A snarl interrupts him.

“EIGHT!”

John jumps and glances down the darkened corridors. The career is finally catching them up.

“Molly, Greg, we’ve got to go!”

Greg nods in understanding. He grabs John’s wrist and pulls him over to the back of the store and uses the key around his neck to unlock a door that says ‘staff only’. Molly follows behind him like an obedient puppy.

Greg shoves him and Sherlock inside and places a finger to his lips. He takes the key off the string from around his neck, and with a wink, he swallows it in one go. Molly steps forwards, looking nervous.

“Beware where the earth bleeds, where bodies are crushed into dust.”

“Those who eat the bodies are sinners,” Greg adds darkly. “Sinners will surely die.” He looks to Molly sadly, who reaches out for his hand. Their fingers interlock.

Greg closes the door and leaves John and Sherlock in almost complete darkness, except for a small window in the corner of the room.

“Go to the window,” John whispers, and Sherlock follows his direction.

John crouches down by the door and watches the unfolding scene through the keyhole. The career has arrived and is wielding a knife. Molly and Greg form a barrier between the career and Sherlock and John.

The career slashes with his knife, aiming for Molly’s neck, but thanks to John’s arrow, his depth perception is screwed and he misses. He lets out a howl of rage and draws closer, slashing again. On his third attempt, it’s clear from the spray of blood that follows that he finally caught Molly’s throat.

“How’s the window coming?” John says in an undertone.

“It’s coming,” Sherlock grunts, making clear with his tone that he’d work better if John didn’t talk to him.

John focuses back on the scene. Greg launches himself at the career, something in his hands but John doesn’t see what it is. Greg’s body is now covering the career, so John can’t see anything except Molly, who was not injured as badly as John had first thought. She’s bleeding from her neck yes, but the career didn’t manage to find the jugular he was presumably aiming for. Her lips are drawn back in a snarl and she seems to be urging Greg on.

Whatever Greg’s doing, she thinks it will kill the career.

“Got it!” Sherlock hisses.

John, despite his curiosity, pulls away immediately from the door and hurries to the window. He gestures for Sherlock to go first, and he does. It’s one of the few times John finds himself glad that he and Sherlock are relatively thin thanks to the Capitol, because the window is small and Sherlock’s struggle to get through makes it clear that John will only just fit through it.

Sherlock tumbles to the ground and lands on his backpack, having shoved it through the window before him. John follows quickly behind him, throwing his backpack and bow ahead of him. He collapses into the dirt next to Sherlock to the boom of a cannon.

When he finally gets up, John breathes a sigh of relief at the sight in front of them. A forest. There should be some easy prey in there. His grip on his bow tightens.

Things are going well; they have food, they have shelter and they’re one person closer to victory.

Another step closer to one of them having to kill the other.

 *****

“We should save the meat till we get out of the forest,” John says, zipping said meat away in Sherlock’s backpack.

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, looking around the forest clearing. “We want to get somewhere where lighting a fire won’t get us killed.”

“Exactly,” John mutters, and starts to head off again. The rabbits were a lucky find, and mean that he and Sherlock won’t have to worry so much about food anymore. Still got to worry about water though.

John coughs, mind suddenly falling onto the subject of Molly and Greg, wondering if he should bring up what he wants to. They’d heard two cannon shots about twenty minutes ago, and it seemed likely that they were the victims, but he was less sure about what had actually killed them. Sherlock senses his reluctance to say something.

“What is it?” he asks harshly.

Sherlock doesn’t often appreciate keeping thoughts to oneself.

“Molly and Greg…” John says hesitantly. “They… They weren’t like that when they started off in the Games. Something must’ve happened to them.” He pauses then adds, “The Gamemakers must’ve done something to them.”

“You’re probably right.” Sherlock looks around the forest, eyes narrowed in thought. “We might have to be careful.”

John lets Sherlock lead the way for most of the time, trusting his sense of direction. Every so often, John spots some herbs and plants he recognises, and collects some for future use. He makes sure to take a lot of the plants that could ease the sting of cuts and scrapes, for when he and Sherlock could finally settle down for a bit, and John could teach him all he knew about scaling buildings. He also warily takes a few poisonous plants, in case he ever needs to use them for something. He’s not quite sure what he’d be using them for, but he thinks it’s better to be prepared now, than wish later that he’d taken some. He also grabs some deathberries, thinking that if he ever gets the opportunity to slip someone a couple of these, their death will be assured in under ten minutes. He’s not sure he could though.

He knew a kid who ate some once. A guilty friend had dragged them to John’s house, where he and his dad helped their patients, admitting that she’d dared her friend to try some unknown berries. John had instantly known from the shivering, weakness of his body, and unnatural redness of his tongue, that the kid had eaten deathberries. He knew that it was likely too much time had passed, but he soldiered on anyway, giving the kid some herbs to make him throw up the berries. But even though the kid coughed up a few remnants of the berries, along with some other things, the poisons had already entered his bloodstream. After a few minutes, he fell into a coma, and without any way of reviving him, or helping his body perform the functions it needed to, he died fairly soon. John hadn’t needed to tell the girl how stupid she’d been to make him try unknown berries. The expression on her face was all too telling.   

Sherlock stops suddenly and John crashes into his back. Sherlock doesn’t seem to notice.

“John, I think that’s a birch tree,” he says, indicating which tree he means. John looks to him with a raised eyebrow, as if to ask, ‘so?’. Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’m aware we have more food now, but are you just going to ignore a simple food source when it falls into our laps?”

John sighs, inwardly admitting that Sherlock has a point. He creeps forwards to look at the tree. Sherlock’s right; it’s birch. Grinning, John pulls a knife out of his backpack and cuts two triangles with four inch sides out of the bark. He hands one triangle to Sherlock.

John brings one corner of the triangle to his lips and a small amount of tree sap dribbles into his mouth. Once he’s sucked all the sap up, he peels back the inner back and swallows it down in a few bites. Not bad.

Once Sherlock’s finished, they continue onwards. They stop only when they reach another clearing, where a strange sight confronts them. It’s strange only in its innocence, because for some reason the air feels sinister and John’s intuition is screaming at him to run.

The clearing is entirely empty apart from a pile of berries that have been stomped into the dusty ground. Red juice trickles across the dirt towards where John and Sherlock stand.

John frowns. He steps towards the berries, wary.

“Do you recognise them?” Sherlock asks, sounding a little put out.

“No… I don’t think…” John says, trailing off as he steps closer.

He bends down to pick a berry up and he rubs it between his fingers, testing the firmness and smell of the berry. It splits open easily and juice trickles down his palm. Suddenly the urge to try the berry overwhelms him, and he brings it close to his lips.

A sudden weight crushes down on him and the berry falls from his fingers. Angry, John tries to twist out from the body on top of him.

Sherlock just jumped on him! What was he playing at!

“Get off!” John growls.

“You were about to eat that!” Sherlock accuses. “You just said you didn’t recognise it!”

Sherlock pulls John to his feet, dragging him away from the berries. He locks his hands around John’s waist, stopping him from going after them.

“But they look so tasty!” John protests, trying to scratch Sherlock hard enough to make him let go, but Sherlock only grips tighter. John turns to snarl at him and is shocked at what he sees.

Sherlock’s eyes are stretched wide, filled with horror and he looks _absolutely terrified._ John has never seen someone in his life look that terrified, not even when they’d been reaped for the Games. Sherlock looks like he’s about to lose his entire world.

It’s the shock that makes John lose focus for a second, and terrified though he looks, Sherlock doesn’t waste the opportunity. He switches his grip so that his hand is tight on John’s wrist, and he sprints. He doesn’t stop for John’s protests, as he tries to fight his way back to the berries. Sherlock changes direction only to avoid the trees speeding towards them.

As they get further towards the edge of the forest, John starts to forget why he wanted the berries so badly. Sherlock’s fear starts to infect him the further away they get, and he starts to run with Sherlock, rather than fight to run in the other direction.

Hazily, too busy with fighting back terror, he notes that he thinks he hears a distant cannon shot, and wonders who it could be for. He hopes he misheard. There’s been too much death this day.

Sherlock doesn’t let go of his wrist, even when they reach the edge of the forest. Panting heavily, Sherlock looks at John, fear still heavy in his eyes.

“What… What was that?” John whispers, when his heart rate’s finally slowed.

Sherlock doesn’t reply, only starts to mutter under his breath, curling into himself, finally dropping his hand from John’s wrist.

“Bodies, blood…?”

John turns to look back, past the forest, to the market. From where they’re standing, it just looks like a huge grey building.

“I think Molly and Greg…” John says quietly.  

Sherlock straightens up.

“Yes,” he says simply, and for a moment, when John looks back to him, his eyes look very watery.

John closes his eyes and makes a silent thanks to Molly and Greg, two scared and unprepared people who had in no way deserved what they’d got. The only source of comfort John can find is that they were together for the entire journey.

“Come on,” Sherlock says softly, and puts his hand in John’s. “Look up.”

John opens his eyes, and finally takes in the scenery ahead of them. A smile worms its way onto his face.

“Perfect,” he murmurs.

The series of buildings with a wide range of heights, with ledges and draining pipes, flat rooves and jagged levels is perfect for Sherlock’s training.

 *****

“No, no, no!” John admonishes, as once more, Sherlock hits the ground wrong.

Sherlock’s always great at the jumping, just not so great at the landings.

“You’ve got to hit this spot when you tuck and roll,” he explains, holding back frustration, as he marks out the spot on Sherlock’s back. “That reduces impact the most. If you don’t hit that spot, you’re not using your momentum best and you’re going to wake up covered in bruises.”

He flicks his wrist to indicate that Sherlock has to go again. Sherlock rolls his eyes but dutifully cats his way up the first wall and pulls himself up and over. He sprints towards the stone stairs that have a wall running alongside them all the way up. The stairwell has a hole in the middle which means Sherlock can jump quickly from one side of the staircase to the other. He does just that, catting his way up to the top. When he gets to the top of the stairs, he climbs over the staircase wall and vaults his way over to a ledge. He drops down and _finally_ manages to stick the landing, the angle between his thighs and shins more than ninety degrees and his roll going diagonally from his shoulder. John breathes a sigh of relief. Sherlock’s still got more to moves to learn, but he’s done for today. John’s glad because it’s finally starting to get dark and he and Sherlock really need to eat.

Sherlock jumps down to him and walks forward, a cocky look all over his face.

“So?” he asks, sounding smug.

John punches him in the arm, just for sounding like such a prat.

“Okay, but you’ve still got more to learn.” John looks up to the inky sky, and exhales shakily. “Come on, it’s getting dark. We’d better get settled for the night.”

He and Sherlock carefully make their way up to the top of one of the buildings in the dying light. He and Sherlock specially picked one out that earlier that couldn’t be reached by stairs, in case they forgot to later. When they reach the top, John wants to collapse into sleep, but instead forces himself to start making a small fire. He gestures for Sherlock to pass both backpacks, having left them in the corner of the rooftop earlier that day. With the supplies, he starts a small fire in only a few moments. He pulls out some of the rabbit meat they’d caught before the trouble with the forest and starts to slowly cook it.

When it’s done, he and Sherlock curl up together in the sleeping bag, munching on the cooked rabbit and looking up to the sky. Finally, what they’re waiting for appears. The list of the dead.

The girl from two’s face flashes up, and John feels a stab of guilt, despite reminding himself that her death was to save Sherlock. Then the career who’d been chasing them. Seems Molly and Greg had managed to kill him in the end. Whatever it was that Greg had been doing worked.

Another picture, finally someone that John didn’t cause to be killed, the boy from seven. John doesn’t remember his first name, but his last name stuck. Anderson. He was one of the two districts whose tributes looked like they would stick together. He’d been holding one of the fingers of the female tribute, a gesture of comfort. John feels a little bad for the female tribute, as she’s now alone in the arena.

There’s a twisting sensation in his heart when the next two pictures flash up, despite knowing that they must have died. Molly and Greg.

Tears in his eyes, John holds two fingers up to his lips, then to the right side of his forehead, and salutes. A sign of respect from his district.

They’d saved his and Sherlock’s life after all. In their final, poison-crazed moments, where logically they should have been aware of nothing, they had chosen to save Sherlock and John, rather than leave them to the wrath of the career. That deserved more than respect, but it was all he could give.

He tries to pretend he’s not, but he curls into Sherlock’s body to hide his face. Sherlock puts an arm around John and draws him closer.

John doesn’t notice when he falls asleep, but he knows that with Sherlock beside him, he feels comfortable sleeping, even with all the horror surrounding them.

 *****

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” John asks nervously, tugging at the rope in his hands.

“I’m certain I’m ready,” Sherlock replies coolly.

“I just… I just don’t want to see you…” He trails off, the thought of Sherlock lying dead on the ground to horrific to even think about.

“Which is what the rope is for,” Sherlock says calmly. “John, I’ll be fine.”

“…Okay,” John says eventually, looking up to where he and Sherlock are aiming for.

John had finally finished teaching Sherlock everything he knew two nights ago, and was only satisfied that Sherlock had the methods completely down at the end of last night. So John had finally been content to move on from the training ground to the next section of the arena.

And of course, the next section of the arena had to be among some of the most challenging buildings John had ever seen, immediately making him regret his decision to move on.

The buildings are grandiose. Tall, wide buildings that have towers that look like they’re trying to touch the sky. They remind him a little of the castle that the tributes from the 54th Hunger Games had found themselves in, only these buildings are much more elegant and beautiful. They have colourful windows, making pictures out of the different shades of glass used. Even the stone used to build it has pictures carved into them, either of people, or simply patterns. High up, on some of the spires, John can see creatures carved from stone that seem to be guarding the buildings.

He wishes he knew what the buildings were called.

John ties the rope in his hands around his waist and sets off, using the carvings in the stone of the building to help hoist himself up.

The building is simultaneously the one of the easiest and most difficult buildings he’s ever had to climb. It’s easy because the many shapes and mounds on the building make it simple for him to know where to put his feet, and there are some ledges, which are very good for using to pull himself up closer to his destination. The problem is that it’s difficult to get from one ledge to another easily, and the gap between some ledges is significant. There are draining pipes of a sort that he can use to get from a lower ledge to a higher ledge in some of the worst cases but he wishes that it were easier in some places.

John finally stops to catch his breath at the top of the lowest spire, where there’s a platform that juts out from the base of the spire, just large enough to stand on comfortably. He looks down to Sherlock, then to the length of rope wrapped around his waist. The rope looks long enough to reach.

He ties one end of the rope around the spire, pulling back against the rope to test its sturdiness. The rope stays firmly in place. With a hammering heart, John throws down the rope for Sherlock. It just reaches him, and Sherlock has to start climbing up the building a little before he can tie it around his waist with satisfactory security.

On his way up, one time Sherlock’s hand slips on the face of some monk and John almost launches himself down the building to help him, but Sherlock quickly manages to rectify the problem. Several minutes later, and Sherlock is standing at John’s side, grinning like he’d never been in danger.

John takes the rope from him with a pull that’s a little harsher than necessary. Sherlock recognises the worry in John’s face and drops his smile.

Now that they’re at the top of one spire, the rest of the journey becomes easier. From the lowest spire the roof slopes up gradually till the next spire, where the roof does continue at the same gradient but about a metre higher, and the pattern continues till the largest central spire at the top, which is what he and Sherlock are aiming for.

“Come on,” John says, giving Sherlock a small smile. “Almost there.”

“I should hope so,” Sherlock huffs.

“We can eat and drink when we get to the top,” John says, comforting mainly himself.

He and Sherlock will finish the last of the water when they get to the top. They’re going to have to find their way to some source of water. John’s hoping that they’ll be able to spot something from the main spire, it being one of the highest points in the arena, barring one other building with a spire at the top of a dome that’s in the same section of the arena. Worst comes to worst, they might have to climb that building to see somewhere with water. If that fails, despite John’s deepest reluctance, they might have to return to the forest. Can’t have trees without any water.

“Joy,” Sherlock replies, sounding sarcastic, but actually looking rather relieved.

They start to climb.

John always feels a little guilty when he mentions food because he hasn’t actually told Sherlock about the black package he’s got in his grey backpack. He hadn’t been able to read the label on it the first night because of the lack of light, but while Sherlock had been playing around, climbing the previous section’s buildings, he had read the label and been shocked at what was apparently inside.

Duck leg confit in orange sauce.

Since the packet is light, most definitely doesn’t contain an actually duck leg, and makes a sound when moved like there are many tiny pellets inside it, John has reached the assumption that it must be some sort of dehydrated food. He’d learnt about that once at school, and apparently it had been fairly cheap and popular amongst the poorer people before the foundation of Panem. He’d got in trouble for asking why if it was so cheap and easy to make why the Capitol didn’t provide it for them.

But for the same reason that John still hasn’t shown Sherlock the golden wolf-head knife, John hasn’t told him about the duck. It just feels like it isn’t theirs to have, stupid as that may seem in the Games. Of course, if it gets to the point that there’s no other food source and he and Sherlock are starving, he doesn’t doubt that he will tell Sherlock and they will eat it together. But until then, he’s saying nothing.

They reach the base of the final spire and haul themselves over onto the platform about a metre above them. It’s square, and large enough to hold both of them while sleeping with room to spare. John steps forwards.

“Ow!” he mutters, rubbing his head. He’d walked into the bell hanging in the tower.

“Watch out,” Sherlock added, a smirk on his face.

“You dick,” John mutters, but he’s smiling.

He collapses to the ground, pulling his backpack off his shoulders. He takes out the water bottle and eyes it. There’s only a couple of sips left. John hands it to Sherlock, and gestures for Sherlock to pass the black backpack. When Sherlock’s handed it to him, he pulls out the remaining meat they have, and judges it to be enough for both of them to have a meal. They’ll need to find some more though, in order to keep up their strength.

John starts to cook the last of the rabbit as Sherlock looks out over the arena.

“We’re going to have to get food and water tomorrow,” Sherlock notes.

“Mmm,” John agrees, fanning the smoke from the fire.

“There’s a lake in the next section.”

John jerks his head up and looks to where Sherlock is looking.

He’s right. John can’t help the grin that works its way onto his face.

“Great,” he says, looking to the now empty water bottle.

“We should probably spilt up.”

John looks up so suddenly that he hits his head on the bell again.

Holding a hand to his throbbing forehead, he asks nervously, “What are you talking about?”

Sherlock looks back at him, a smug-like smile on his face, as though pleased to cause John such worry. Hell, he’s definitely pleased to cause John’s heart to give out, the prick.

“I mean, you should go hunting, find some food, and I’ll get some water from the lake. Then we can meet up at the biggest cathedral, over there,” he says, jerking his thumb in the direction of the building.

Cathedral? Is that what the buildings are called?

John shakes his head, more important things for him to worry about.

“But if the lake’s the only water source, surely the careers are going to be guarding it?”

Then again, only two careers left, how much of a fight can they put up? But he’s not going to mention that the Sherlock; he doesn’t want Sherlock out of his sight, lest he get badly injured, or worse.

“And,” John continues, “you seem reluctant to take any kind of weapon. What are you going to do if someone attacks you?”

Sherlock sighs.

“I may not want to take up a weapon, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use one. I have intimate knowledge of the human body and I do know how to harm people if needed.” At John’s disbelieving look, he continues, “I often helped out at the healer’s house, removing the dead bodies. I used to open them up later and look at what went on inside, see if I could work out how they died and such.”

“Then…” John says slowly, curious. “Then why are you so… so seemingly squeamish when it comes to hurting someone in the arena?”

“In my district, it was not normal to want to cut bodies up,” Sherlock says in a detached manner. “In circumstances where someone had died not of starvation, people started to spread rumours that I had killed them, in order to have more bodies to work with. Ridiculous of course, but rumours tend to spread quickly, especially when one is the younger brother of a high authority figure.”

“Oh,” John says, his heart hurting for Sherlock. “It’s okay, I understand. I’ll go hunting tomorrow, and you get the water.”

He’s well aware that Sherlock just manipulated him into doing what he wanted, but he doesn’t really care. Sherlock won’t recognise it as such, but John wants to show him that not everyone has an inherent mistrust of Sherlock. In fact, John would trust him with his life.

John sighs and looks up to the skies. They’re already darkening. As the Games progress, the Gamemakers always like to shorten the days. It has the unfortunate side effect, at least in the tributes’ opinions, of limiting safe and easy movement. This is of course exactly what the Gamemakers aim for. John however can’t say he’s displeased; given that he and Sherlock only require enough daylight to get up and down a building to get some food, and require a lot of energy to do it, the extra sleeping time available to them is welcome.

“Shit!” John exclaims, suddenly noticing the now slightly charred rabbit meat.

He spears the slices of meat and moves them away from the fire. Sherlock helpfully blows out the fire. John eyes up both slices of meat and hands Sherlock the less burnt one. Sherlock of course, narrows his eyes at John. What John doesn’t expect is for Sherlock to switch the meats in the blink of an eye while John is momentarily distracted by looking up at the stars. John turns back to glare at Sherlock.

Sherlock, currently munching on the burnt flesh, says, “John, I can’t say I don’t appreciate what you’re attempting to do, but throughout this entire relationship I’ve seen you almost always take the worst of something on purpose, in order to leave me the best, and I’m telling you now that I will not stand for it any more. I’m aware of how unbalanced our relationship is, but that doesn’t mean I can’t handle things.”

“… Unbalanced?” John asks slowly, his food temporarily forgotten.

“Yes,” Sherlock says casually. “The fact that you are much more suited to this environment than I am and have to constantly use your skills to help me.”

“Sherlock,” John says, voice dangerously calm, “are you telling me that you think I would be better off without you?”

“The way you’re phrasing it makes it seem like you don’t agree,” Sherlock notes.

“Damn right I don’t agree!” John snaps. “Have you been thinking this the whole time?”

“Be honest John,” Sherlock says calmly, “how many times have my deduction skills helped us? Now count how many times your climbing and hunting skills have helped us.”

“You saved me from those damn berries, I would’ve been dead without you!” John snarls, anger forcing its way to the surface of his thoughts.

“If you had not formed an alliance with me, you would not have been subject to the berries in the first place.”

“Oh?” John snorts. “And how’d you figure that?”

“Simple,” Sherlock says, staring at John in a way that suggests _he’s_ the crazy one. “If we had not formed an alliance, you would have had no need to go looking for me at our agreed spot, you would have had no need to kill the girl from district two, her career friend would not have hounded you, you would have not have entered the market, you would not have entered the forest, you would not have encountered the berries.”

“So you think I would have never gone to the forest on my own? That there is no possible way I could have encountered the berries without you and died without you?”

“Precisely.”

John’s rage keeps him silent for a moment.

“You. Absolute. Idiot!” John drags his hands down his face, food lying forgotten on the floor. “I can’t believe I was under the impression this whole time that you were a genius. Oh my god,” he says suddenly, another realisation hitting him. “Oh my god you complete and utter _ijit_! You think I’ve been staying with you this whole time because of our _alliance_?”

If there’s a word for incredulous and angry, John’s feeling it right now.

“Sherlock did you not ever consider the fact that _I like your company_? An alliance means nothing if you don’t care for the person you’re with!” John sees Sherlock about to protest that statement, and makes a movement to shush him. “An alliance without care is what the careers have, and do you know what becomes of that kind of alliance? As soon as you’re even halfway useless, you’re gone. And Sherlock, in case it isn’t clear, not only do I not consider you useless, but even if I did think you were weighing me down, I wouldn’t leave you until after you drew your dying breath.”

John’s breathing heavily at this point, but it calms slightly when he sees Sherlock’s frown. Not because he’s not still angry, but he’s starting to get the biggest picture.

“I don’t un—” Sherlock starts, but John cuts across him.

“Sherlock, if I have to put words to it, here it goes.” He draws in a deep breath to steady himself, and finishes, “You’re my best friend.”

Sherlock doesn’t return the words, but John can tell from the light in his eyes that Sherlock feels the same way, even if he won’t say it. John grins.

“Now eat your damn meat and we’ll go to bed,” he says.

The burnt meat isn’t satisfying in itself, but satisfying because John feels that at least now, he and Sherlock understand each other better.

“John,” Sherlock says quietly, picking at his meat.

“Yeah?”

“I just…” Sherlock trails off, which makes John slightly nervous. Sherlock is almost never lost for words. “I want you to know that in the Games… If it comes to it… I don’t want a pointless death. I want it to be on our terms.” At John’s silence, he adds, “I just wanted you to know.”

“I know,” John says softly. “If it comes to it, it will be.”

When he crawls into the sleeping bag, followed by Sherlock, he feels secure in the knowledge that he and Sherlock are no longer talking past each other.

 *****

 There’s a crackle as John steps on dry leaves. The groosling he’s tracking takes off into the sky with only a cursory glance back.

John curses under his breath. Living in the city in district eight, with rubbish and bricks and other overflowing materials littering the streets, he knows the importance of avoiding noisy objects when tracking prey. Only problem is, having never hunted in a forest before, he doesn’t always recognise the noisy objects when he sees them.

He sighs, wondering for a moment if he should head back to the council buildings (one had a sign on the outside calling itself that). But he’d scoured that area for hours and not found any prey, not like back in district eight where fox-like creatures roam the streets, hoping to pick up easy food and where menacing birds pick at the rubbish heaps. Easy.

Then again, John thinks, looking around warily at the dark forest, after the whole berry incident, he really isn’t happy being in the forest. It feels threatening.

But he and Sherlock need food, and he only has about another two hours or so before he and Sherlock have agreed to meet.

There’s a rustle in the bushes and John silently nocks an arrow, inhales softly as he draws back the bowstring.

A squeal, then nothing. John edges forwards to see what prey he’s caught. He grins. A hare. He needs to catch a little more; hares don’t have much fat on them which doesn’t make them good as his and Sherlock’s only food source, but it’s a start.

An hour later and John has enough food to last them a week if they’re careful. But given all the energy they have to use to get to a safe place, maybe five days if they’re safe and three if they’re not.

He starts heading back to the meeting point, a ledge at the top of the domed cathedral that marks the highest point in the Games. He and Sherlock are going to watch the sunset together. It should be beautiful. At least, as beautiful as the manufactured beauty of the Capitol can be. Sherlock’s likely to be there already, given that his only task of the day was to get to and from the lake with water. Then again, Sherlock may have had to take a longer route to the lake than he wanted to, in order to avoid Careers and the like. It’s unlikely that the lake lies unguarded.

The sun is low in the sky, just skimming above the horizon, when John finally pulls himself up onto the ledge, where Sherlock is predictably waiting.

“Back in time,” John says with a grin, nodding towards the sun, as it just starts to dip below the horizon.

The sky is blood red and it bleeds into the clouds, staining them pink.

“Oh joy,” Sherlock remarks drily, “you’ve returned in time to see the sun appear to sink below the horizon like it does every day. I don’t know how you would have coped with missing it.”

He and John glance at each other, and share a smile.

It feels like perfect peace, him and Sherlock watching in silence as the sun colours the sky and sinks lower and lower. Darkness takes over until the only light remaining is that of the feebly twinkling stars. Looking over to him, in the small amount of light, Sherlock looks pale, almost deathly. It’s when he smiles at John that he no longer looks ill.

“Oh,” Sherlock says suddenly, sitting up.

“Oh?”

“I left my backpack at the lake,” Sherlock says desperately, looking around for any sign that he’s wrong.

“Well…” John says slowly, thinking. “It’s bad but I mean, no one will be out there at this time, we can go get it sometime tomorrow.”

“No but,” Sherlock says nervously, “it has our water in it, and the flint we need to get a fire started.” He stands. “I have to go back for it.”

“At this time?” John asks desperately, silently begging Sherlock not to go.

He has a really bad feeling about all of this.

“Yes,” Sherlock answers simply. “Look John, I’ll be back in twenty minutes, at most. You just relax, go to sleep and I’ll be back by the time you wake up.”

It’s with a heavy heart that John watches Sherlock go. He doesn’t take Sherlock’s advice to sleep; like he could sleep even if he wanted to. He waits. He waits and waits, until he knows that twenty minutes has come and gone and Sherlock hasn’t returned.

John tries to look for him from the ledge, but it’s dark and many of the cathedrals block his view. John looks to his backpack, still zipped up. He hadn’t taken anything out yet, as he and Sherlock usually get into the sleeping bag together, and he hadn’t thought to take it out when Sherlock left.

Sherlock doesn’t even have a weapon with him, John realises in horror. In the backpack, Sherlock will have the throwing knives John gave him, but he has to get to the backpack first. What if he was ambushed along the way?

John stands, panic fluttering in his chest like a caged bird. He has to go after Sherlock. He has to check he’s okay.

John slings the backpack and the bow and arrows over his shoulders and starts his careful descent down. Even though he’s being careful, John goes faster than he normally would because time may be of the essence. He’d hate to think he arrived a few seconds too late because he was being overly cautious when descending.

A sigh of relief escapes him as he hits the ground. One step closer to Sherlock. John looks around as he tries to work out which way the lake is in relation to him. He uses the stars to judge.

Once he’s worked out the correct direction, he’s about to set off when he notices something at the base of the cathedral he just came down. Warily, he creeps towards it, pulling his bow from his shoulder and notching an arrow. As he gets closer, he recognises the shape, but even as fear grips his heart, he refuses to know what it is. Not until he can’t deny it any more.

John picks up the backpack and with shaking hands checks the strap. The white ‘x’ is plain to see, even in the weak starlight.

His legs tremble as the realisation hits him. Sherlock didn’t leave his backpack at the lake, and he knew it.

Sherlock is long gone.

The question of why floats through his head, but he can’t bring himself to go near it. He’s too scared it’ll bring out answers like ‘Sherlock thought you wouldn’t care’ or ‘Sherlock was too good for you’. Tears threaten to fall, but he forces them back, well aware that all cameras are likely on him. There’s probably nothing else interesting happening at this time of night.

Before John can work out what to do, he hears a stone skittering across the dirt path, and it stops his thoughts in their tracks.

“Sherlock?” he asks hesitantly.

“Guess again Johnny,” a voice replies maliciously, as something glints in the darkness.

Darkness smashes into John and he is dead to the world.  


	5. She's My Winona

Bright spots flash across John’s vision as he finally blinks himself back to the waking world. He tries not to recoil sharply as the wolf boy from three slowly comes into focus. Around the boy's waist is a utility belt of sorts, only it’s filled with various weapons that glint menacingly, threatening him with endless pain.

“It’s almost show-time Johnny,” the boy says with a grin. “If you’d been asleep much longer I might’ve slit your throat and hung you from the rafters to get you ready in time.”

John swallows down the fear and disgust in his throat, and tries to focus on adrenaline and survival instincts. He’s come too fucking far in this game to die now, at the hands of this boy.

Though ‘boy’ is perhaps a bit harsh; he’s on the cusp of adulthood, and could perhaps even be called a man, if John were in the mood to be kind.

Narrowing his eyes, John sizes up the kid, and realises that he wants John to ask what he’s supposed to be ready for, what happens at show time. He grits his teeth and refuses to ask out of pure stubbornness. A scowl spreads across the boy’s face, displeased at having his fun destroyed.

“Sherlock will be here soon!” the boy trills suddenly, his good mood returning, and that grabs John’s attention. His head jerks up, like a dog hearing a call from its owner.

Sherlock?

“Now Johnny,” Three says, “just in case you get any funny ideas in that tiny little head of yours, thinking that you can run off, I have my man waiting on the building next to us.” He points to a window on the building to the right of them. The building’s a little taller than the one he’s on, but only by a few storeys. “Wouldn’t you know, he’s also a little archer. Better than you I’d wager. And do you know, he’s very upset about those arrows that Sherlock stole off him. The ones he saw fit to give you.”

John’s stomach twists in worry when he remembers the split lip and black eye that Sherlock had when John had first found him. What did Sherlock do? Who could he have gone up against? John’s mouth goes dry as he realises that the only logical possibility is the man from one, the one looking like he’d start a fight over nothing, just to get some excitement.

Oh, Sherlock…

“But you know what’s extra special about my man?” the boy continues. He lowers his voice suddenly, like he’s telling a secret that no one else knows. “I pulled up the electronics from the mines in the Cornucopia and wired them into the arrows he has.” He smirks, and adds in a voice that suggests he thinks John doesn’t get it, “His arrows now explode on impact. You even _think_ of running off, Sherlock will see you in pieces.”

John glares at the boy, rage seething inside him, boiling beneath the surface. The boy laughs gleefully.

“Oh you’re rather amusing actually sometimes,” he says. “Maybe I can almost see why Sherlock keeps you around.”

John has a sudden, vivid memory of his and Sherlock’s argument two nights ago and has to stop himself from laughing derisively. It seems this wolf-smile boy has got his and Sherlock’s needs a little mixed up.

The boy’s head snaps up as a noise sounds from down below. He presses his palm to John’s mouth and drags him to the side of the door that leads to the roof, so they’re hidden. John almost thinks about biting the boy’s palm, but realises quickly that Sherlock may be the one to pay for that, so he remains silent and seething.

“Alright Moriarty,” Sherlock drawls as the door to the rooftop swings open and he steps through. “You’ve got me in your game. What do you want?”

Moriarty. That’s his name.

Though John’s not sure he deserves one.

“Oh Sherlock, I’m so glad you asked.”

Sherlock whips round and his face goes pale as he catches sight of John forcefully held back by Moriarty.

“John?” he whispers, sounding like all the breath has left his body forever.

“I want to play a game Sherlock, a game of wits.”

Moriarty lets go of John to dig around in his pockets and finally pulls out what looks like two capsules. They appear almost identical.

John would run, but he knows the consequence. So he remains stiff as a statue, trying to figure out how to get him and Sherlock out of this.

“Let me guess,” Sherlock says, in a bored tone, “pick a poison, one of us lives, and one of us dies?”

“Exactly.”

“Boring.”

“Ah but that’s where you’re wrong Sherlock, it’s so _very_ interesting.”

Moriarty’s soft Irish accent makes that sentence sound so dangerous that John has to suppress a shiver.

“How so?”

“This is a game of intellect. The one with the greater intellect is the winner, and the one who fails… Well, history will forget him.”

“It’s chance,” Sherlock snaps.

“It’s not,” Moriarty replies, a wicked grin smeared across his face.

“And what makes you think I will put my life on the line for the sake of proving my intelligence?” Sherlock snorts.

But John can see the curiosity in his gaze, and it breaks his heart. He has to stop this!

John launches himself on Moriarty, with one arm holding Moriarty’s arms fast at his side and the other pressing dangerously heavily on his neck.

“Run Sherlock!” he cries, struggling to hold Moriarty in place.

Sherlock doesn’t move a muscle. Moriarty laughs and tries to shrug John off him but John holds strong, silently begging Sherlock to leave while he still has the chance.

But too many seconds pass and John knows that not only will Sherlock not leave him, the man from one, the one with mined arrows, has moved his target to Sherlock for as long as John clutches at Moriarty.

With a heavy heart, John slowly releases Moriarty, who brushes himself off and looks down at his clothes with slight distain.

“John, come here,” Sherlock says softly, beckoning him over. With a small glance at Moriarty, John heads over to Sherlock’s side. “I want you to promise me one thing,” Sherlock says, eyes trained on Moriarty’s. “No matter what the outcome is of this game, John remains alive.”

John glares at Moriarty, daring him to reject the offer. What surprises John is that Moriarty doesn’t look at Sherlock; he keeps his cold analysing eyes on John. It’s reminiscent of back in training when he’d caught Moriarty looking like he wanted to dissect John. The look Moriarty’s giving him now reminds John of someone who sees a puzzle they know they have the intelligence to solve, but they can’t figure out how to go about solving it.

“Deal,” Moriarty says softly, teeth glinting as he grins.

Moriarty holds out his palms, and sorts the pills out so that there’s one in each hand.

Sherlock leans down to closely observe each pill. John feels dizzy with sickness as it hits him that Sherlock is really going through with this. Words to persuade Sherlock to leave stick in his throat. He closes his eyes, unable to watch, but he soon opens them again because he is unable to not watch.

Sherlock, after careful deliberation, chooses the capsule from Moriarty’s left hand and holds it against his lips. Moriarty copies him. Sherlock takes a final look at John before he pushes the pill into his mouth and swallows. Moriarty follows suit.

For a moment, John thinks everything is okay. Sherlock smiles at him and stands, unperturbed and blatantly alive.

Then it all goes wrong.

Sherlock chokes, eye wide and filled with fear. He clutches at his chest, fingers digging in as though he’s trying to tear something out. Collapsing to his knees, fingernails scraping against the rough concrete ground, he pulls himself past Moriarty, to the edge of the building, where the stairway is. He uses the wall to push himself to his feet. His eyes search for John’s and when he finds them, he coughs, blood spraying across the rooftop. His right hand clutches at the edge of the roof. Eyes locked on John, Sherlock manages a weak smile and opens his mouth as though to say something. But whatever it was he wanted to say John never finds out, because with a final sorry smile, Sherlock collapses backwards off the roof and onto the stairway. The boom of the cannon sounds as he hits the surface.

“NO!” John screams, all thoughts of Moriarty and his hit man lost in his desperation.

He scrambles to the stairway, pushing Moriarty out of the way, leaning over and praying to some entity that Sherlock isn’t dead, even though he knows he must be.

Blood dribbles from Sherlock’s mouth and trickles through the holes in the stairway. His eyes are glassy and unseeing. It’s their unseeing gaze that forces John to accept what has happened.

John vaults over the wall and lands next to Sherlock’s body. He cradles Sherlock’s body to his chest, rocking back and forth whilst trying to hold back tears. His hands are smeared with blood but he couldn’t care less about anything else while Sherlock lies dead in his arms.

His best friend. Oh God.

Oh God and Sherlock never had anyone who was for him, who listened to him and told him he was amazing, who called him a prick in such a tone that always spoke fondly, until John. And John didn’t save him. He didn’t save this lonely man. And now there was no one to cry for him but John.

And for all his bravado and intelligence, what did he get? A meaningless death. The most meaningless death of all. There would be no funeral for Sherlock Holmes, the greatest, most human person that John had ever known, who was so shunned that he would rather pretend that he didn’t have emotions than show how much he was hurting.

John clutches Sherlock’s body closer, trying desperately to pretend that the hovercrafts are not already on their way.  

Someone drags him away from Sherlock and he lashes out unthinkingly, connecting with flesh, but whoever it is doesn’t let him go. They hold on until the hovercrafts take Sherlock’s body, and suddenly the hold is gone.

John whips around snarling, to see who held him back, but there is no one on the rooftop other than Moriarty, who is gazing at John with what might almost be called confusion.

John doesn’t hold his attention for long though, as he turns around to the building where the archer is, and squints at one of the windows. Moriarty looks down to the ground for a moment, searching for something, and after a moment or two picks up a brick lying in one of the corners of the rooftop. He weighs it up in his hands, looks to the window again, and throws the brick directly into the window one storey above where their rooftop stands.

John jumps in surprise and then drops to the floor, covering his head, as an explosion vibrates through the building.

“What the…?” John gapes, mouth opening and closing repeatedly as he tries to process why Moriarty just bombed the building that his hit man was still standing in.

“C’mon Johnny,” Moriarty sings, slinging Sherlock’s black backpack over his shoulder. “I wanna see if I caught something. Or rather, someone,” he finishes with a smug grin.

All John can think though is, thank god he didn’t take the grey backpack.

Before Moriarty can do just that, John hurriedly goes over to his backpack and throws it over his shoulder. He looks around for his bow and arrow but he can’t see them anywhere.

“Ah, ah, Johnny,” Moriarty says in a warning tone. “I’ve already taken those someplace safe. You want them and the backpack, then _follow me_.”

He holds open the door that leads down into the building, and gestures for John to go through. With a heavy heart, John follows his direction.

It’s not just the bow, the arrows and Sherlock’s backpack that makes him follow, but the fact that John’s sure that Moriarty will kill him in an instant if he tries to run. Well, he could probably run faster than Moriarty, but going by some of the knives in his weapons belt, Moriarty seems to be skilled at throwing knives. And if John took him by surprise by jumping off the edge of the building, then he’d be giving away the one advantage he has over Moriarty. As Moriarty is the only tribute boasting a twelve, John doesn’t want to let Moriarty know more about him than he has to, especially if they end up as the final two.

That is assuming that Moriarty lets him live. Moriarty did make a deal with Sherlock, but the word of a murderer doesn’t exactly fill John with confidence. Though he has to admit that so far, Moriarty seems more interested in keeping John with him than killing him. He’s not entirely sure he wants to think about that and what it means.

John tosses around the idea of somehow tricking or forcing Moriarty to eat the deathberries in his backpack, but he can’t figure out a plan that won’t have Moriarty aware of what he’s doing. He’s not gunna underestimate Moriarty; he’s about as clever as Sherlock. So if Sherlock would have known, John’s gunna assume Moriarty would.

When they reach the bottom of the stairs, Moriarty hurries out. He waits for John outside and directs him inside the partially bombed building. They start to climb the stairs silently. John is glad for the silence, but Moriarty looks like he would have wished for a chattier hostage. John snorts and thinks that whatever Moriarty wants from him, John’s not going to give it to him. Or at least, he’ll be most difficult about giving it to him.

Finally, it seems, they reach the floor that was bombed. Moriarty steps through first, and John follows.

“Watch out for the floor,” Moriarty says reluctantly.

“Yeah, I’d worked that out for myself thanks,” John retorts, noting several holes in the floor.

Even where there aren’t holes, the floor looks burnt up and John wouldn’t trust putting his entire weight on parts of the floor.

“Good,” Moriarty says, sounding more cheerful.

John looks around the room and tries not to heave. Although from the outside, it appeared to be one giant explosion, the varying rubble and scorch marks imply that it was actually a series of smaller explosions.

That’s not what’s disturbing though. The disturbing thing is the chunks of bloody flesh blown across the room, which are stuck to the walls and floors.

Moriarty claps his hands gleefully and surveys the mess.

“I wasn’t sure if I got him, you see,” he explains, though John didn’t need or want him to. “Couldn’t hear the cannon over the explosion.”

Done looking at the mess he’d created, Moriarty heads back downstairs, checking every so often that John is still following him.

“We’d better find somewhere to sleep,” Moriarty comments, looking at the darkening sky.

John jerks his head up to look at the sky and then looks back at the ground with a sigh. Damn Gamemakers sure are trying to limit the time tributes spend actually doing things. They must have something planned.

“Wait, hold on just a goddamn second,” John says suddenly. “ _We?_ ”

“We’ll discuss it when we set up camp, eh Johnny?”

If John hears the name ‘Johnny’ one more time, never mind the consequences, he’ll punch Moriarty.

John looks around at the buildings around him. He’s lost track of where… with Sherlock…

He and Moriarty have been just walking down the street between the buildings with the stairways, and the buildings on the other side which the boy from two almost caught them on. He and Moriarty have been a walking target.

John starts to feel itchy, like bugs are crawling all over his skin. He keeps swinging his head round to check for enemies. Other than the obvious one that was Moriarty of course.

He doesn’t like sticking to the ground. It feels far too open and exposed. But he can’t take to the skies with Moriarty there. He’ll be revealing his one hidden strength.

It’s with a sense of relief that John follows Moriarty into a building god knows how long later. They head to the rooftop, and for a moment, John pretends that he’s not walking with Moriarty, but with Sherlock, and they’re setting up their normal high point camp. It feels good for the few moments that he forgets Sherlock is dead.

Dead…

They reach the roof, and though John is not impressed that anyone can reach their camp, he feels more comfortable being closer to the stars than the earth.

“What is this ‘we’ you’re talking about?” John says suddenly, hoping to catch Moriarty a little off guard.

It doesn’t work.

“Look Johnny, it’s been a long day. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

John just stares at him, unable to form words.

_It’s been a long day?_

He’s gonna throttle the kid, damn the repercussions. But he’s so damn angry he can’t even move his arms.

“Be a dear and get out your sleeping bag,” Moriarty says with a yawn, dropping Sherlock’s bag on the furthest side of the roof from John.

John doesn’t bother asking how he knows. Probably he didn’t in fact rummage through John’s backpack and just wants to show off his Sherlock-like deduction skills. It doesn’t matter either way. He pulls out the sleeping bag, careful to keep the wolf-hilt knife hidden. If he didn’t tell Sherlock about it, he’s hardly going to tell a mad-man like Moriarty.

He rolls out the sleeping bag and before he can say anything, Moriarty leaps on it and wriggles inside.

“What are you doing?” John asks in a dangerously low voice.

“If we both sleep in the sleeping bag, it will guarantee both of us living to see morning,” Moriarty explains.

“Why?”

“If we’re both sleeping in this —oh wait hold on,” he says and wiggles his way out of what John assumes is his weapons belt. He’s right; Moriarty pulls it out from the sleeping bag and tosses it over to Sherlock’s bag. “If we’re both sleeping in this, then neither of us will be able to get our weapons without waking the other. Therefore neither of us will end up dead during the night.”

John grits his teeth. For a moment, he entertains the idea of killing Moriarty now, while he’s helpless. But even he recognises that if he goes rooting around in his bag for the knife, Moriarty will realise immediately what he’s doing and will react accordingly, and the chances of John ending up dead are not only high, they’re a hundred percent. Besides, suspicious though he is, what Moriarty is essentially offering him is a guarantee that he won’t be killed while he sleeps. He shouldn’t take that lightly.

Warily, John places his backpack in the opposite corner of the roof to Sherlock’s bag, but still as far away from the sleeping bag as possible. Feeling sick, he forces himself into the sleeping bag with Moriarty. He turns over on his back so he doesn’t have to look at the face of Sherlock’s murderer, but also doesn’t reveal his back to him.

When he falls asleep, it is by far the most restless and unpleasant sleep of the entire Games.

 *****

John jolts awake as he feels someone shifting out of the sleeping bag. He relaxes for a moment, thinking it’s Sherlock. Then it all comes crashing back in a few painful seconds, and John turns his head sharply to check that Moriarty is not up to anything.

“Good, I thought that would wake you,” he says approvingly.

John removes himself from the sleeping bag, just as Moriarty turns away to go and pick up Sherlock’s backpack. John curses himself for letting that happen again. Yet again, he hurries over to his own backpack to pick it up before Moriarty can do so.

“So,” John says firmly, hoisting the backpack over his shoulder, “ _we_?”

“I’m proposing an alliance,” Moriarty says.

The ‘hah’ slips out of John before he can stop it. Moriarty doesn’t look offended though, so John decides to continue.

“You expect me to willingly form an alliance with the person who murdered my best friend?”

Now Moriarty looks offended.

“Murder?” he says, eyes too wide for innocence. “I’ll remind you Johnny, he took that pill himself.”

“Because you goaded him into it!” John spits.

“That doesn’t make it murder. It was his decision.” He smirks. “He could have walked away at any time.”

John’s fingers start twitching as he imagines what it would be like to strangle Moriarty to death.

“He was going to die anyway!” Moriarty insists.

“Yeah, but it was going to be on _our_ terms,” John cries angrily.

They both fall into silence, John out of sorrow, Moriarty out of confusion.

“Whether it was murder or not is beside the point,” Moriarty says, seemingly noticing that having an argument about murder is not helping.

“It is not when you’re suggesting an alliance with me!” John snaps.

“Even if it was murder,” Moriarty says with a deadly softness, “allying yourself with me would be a huge advantage, and not to do so for ‘pride’” — his tone on that one word speaks volumes about what he thinks of ‘pride’— “Or whatever it is that’s making you reject me, is not only stupidity, it’s foolishness.”

John observes him silently for a moment.

“Sherlock is dead,” Moriarty continues, and hearing it spoken aloud sends daggers to John’s heart. “So you have to stop worrying about him or what he would think, because your only aim now should be to get the best advantage possible. Would you rather die for your sense of right and wrong, or stick with me and survive?”

In a twisted way, Moriarty does have a point. John wants time to mourn, but it’s true that he can’t let himself die to protect his sense of morality over Sherlock’s death.

But to ally with Moriarty?

It would have to be an alliance with huge advantage for John.

“Why should I ally with you?” he asks.

“Other than the obvious?” Moriarty says.

“Yes,” John replies coldly.

“My time in the Games, as well as my score at training,” he adds with a wink, “has shown many people that I’m going to be in the final two, and the public have grown attached to me, and so I have many sponsors sending me things to make my journey to the end simpler. Anything I get from the sponsors that it is possible to share, I will share with you. Many tributes are reluctant to come near me, and those that weren’t are mostly dead now, so you won’t run into huge trouble when with me. This means you would, if allying with me, reach the final two with me.”

“And why on earth would I want to do that?”

“Because if you reach the final two with me, you will know who your enemy is. There won’t be any surprises. It’ll be a clean fight.”

If John’s going to be honest, he doesn’t see that Moriarty’s getting a huge amount out of this alliance, other than getting what he’ll consider an easy target in the final. But most of the tributes left are still likely to be easy targets for him, so John shouldn’t be anything special.

“If,” John says carefully, “I were to ally with you, what would be our agreement?”

Moriarty perks up, and starts speaking quickly, as though he’s got everything worked out.

“We would share resources and food. Sponsors would be shared too. Since I imagine you would not be in any way persuaded to come to my aid if I am under attack, we don’t have an obligation to help the other if the other is being attacked. However, we do have an obligation to tell the other if they are in danger but not being attacked. Obviously we’re not allowed to kill each other, unless we get to the final two. At the point that we become the final two, we have five hours before one of us is allowed to kill the other, so that if one of us is sleeping, we don’t get killed without a chance to fight back.”

He’s right about one thing: John wouldn’t help Moriarty even if that was in the agreement.

John thinks for a moment, before bring up any concerns or queries.

“You probably have a lot of sponsors at the moment, but I don’t have any. If I ally with you, you’ll likely lose all the sponsors you have,” he admits.

“My sponsors trust my judgement. If both Sherlock and I have seen something in you worth keeping, they’ll realise that there must be something they can’t see.”

John’s not hugely convinced, but it doesn’t really matter to him at all. He won’t be the one losing anything if Moriarty’s wrong.

“Also, I’d like clarification on the being attacked and being in danger part,” John states.

Moriarty sighs, looking bored.

“If someone is holding a knife to your throat, that counts as you being attacked, and I have no obligation to help. However if I see a tree about to fall on you, I have tell you as you are not being attacked but are in danger.”

John thinks he understands.

It still feels horribly wrong, but Moriarty’s right; he needs to focus on his survival now and mourn Sherlock later. He’ll hate himself for this later, but it’s probably the right thing to do. Maybe.

“I’ll agree on one condition,” John says.

Moriarty smiles in a way that sends a shiver down John’s spine, because it’s not his wolf-who’s-caught-the-sheep smile, but something entirely different that he doesn’t know how to categorise.

“What condition?” Moriarty prods, when John doesn’t continue.

“We add something to the agreement: one of us can break the alliance at any point, as long as we tell the other, and we then also have five hours before we are allowed to kill the other.”

“Deal!” Moriarty agrees instantly.

John feels like he’s made a deal with the devil. Except perhaps even the devil would think twice about making a deal with Jim Moriarty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I don't normally make notes but can I just say, I'm sorry to everyone who's fic I've read and thought 'good plot but Jim's a bit ooc' because NOW I KNOW YOUR STRUGGLE. I'm just gunna warn y'all that I'm not convinced I always managed to portray him correctly. But I tried!


	6. Sell Your Soul

The first day with Moriarty doesn’t bring many changes, but John nevertheless feels entirely awkward with the situation at hand. Even if he does feel better for having his bow and arrows, which Moriarty finally gave back to him after they’d made the deal, there’s a tension in the air between them that Moriarty seems entirely unaware of.

Moriarty continually asks him questions, and when John doesn’t answer, Moriarty answers them himself, sometimes working out what John would have said, and other times just giving his own answers to the question. John hasn’t asked any questions in return, not particularly caring to learn more about Sherlock’s murderer, even if they are in an alliance. He’s more bothered with wondering what an earth they’re doing spending the entire day wandering the arena with no apparent plan or purpose.

John’s honestly glad when it becomes dark and they have to find somewhere to sleep, because Moriarty’s questions slow, and finally John knows what roughly sort of thing they’re heading for.

John squints into the distance, where he spies a strange, almost cylindrical building, which is reflecting the pitch black sky so well that it looks almost invisible. He only spots it because of the moon’s reflection in it.

“If you’re open to suggestions,” John remarks, bitterness not quite hidden in his voice, “I’d suggest that building for camp.”

He points to the building he’s talking about with his right hand. Moriarty’s eyes dart to the checkered strip of fabric tied to his wrist, instead of following his pointing finger. Gritting his teeth, John jerks his hand out of Moriarty’s line of vision, trying not to snarl defensively. It becomes increasingly difficult as Moriarty throws him a smirk, and John can taste the condescension behind it.

“Sure Johnny,” Moriarty grins.

Clenching his fists, John storms on ahead, not caring about whether he leaves Moriarty behind or not. When he reaches the glass building first, he wrenches the door open and doesn’t glance back as he lets the door slam behind him, but he hears Moriarty enter a moment later while John’s searching for the stairs.

“We should get up high,” Moriarty says casually, glancing at a sign that lists what each floor apparently is for. “It’s unlikely that any tribute followed us, or even would guess we’re here but—”

“Yeah I know,” John cuts across him, and starts heading up the stairs. Moriarty follows him with a spring in his step, apparently not bothered at John’s hostility.

John decides at random that the fifteenth floor will do. He figures, as he tries not to collapse in a ball on the ground, that no one will want to make the same climb, even if they do know where he and Moriarty are there.

Moriarty peers at the list of offices on the fifteenth floor, and seems to think he has a good idea of where he wants to go, as he takes the lead. John grumbles to himself, but actually isn’t that bothered. Let Moriarty do some of the work, even if the work is only finding a good space to sleep.

They head through a set of double doors, and John pauses to heave a desk against the doors. He looks up to find Moriarty watching him with unrestrained curiosity, and John shrugs.

“In case anyone does get up this far, we’ll hear them trying to get in here.”

Moriarty tilts his head, looking a little like a curious bird.

“Aren’t you worried about being trapped here with me?” he asks.

John snorts, “Hardly trapped. I have no qualms about breaking the glass to escape,” he says, gesturing to the glass panes in the double doors.

Moriarty nods, looking almost pleased, as he continues down the corridor. John doesn’t know what to do with that information, so he doesn’t address it. He follows Moriarty to halfway down the hall, where they slip into a large office, that has the sign ‘executive’ in gold on the door. John doesn’t know what an executive is, but whatever it is that they did, clearly it was a lucrative job, because the office is huge.

John settles down in the middle of the room, in front of a couple of desks, and pulls his sleeping bag from his backpack. He sneaks a glance at the backpack still hanging over Moriarty’s shoulder, and sighs, resigning himself to the fact that he’s likely to not get Sherlock’s backpack back for the foreseeable future. John wriggles into the sleeping bag, and narrows his eyes at Moriarty, who’s lying against the wall by the door, underneath a whiteboard with various scribblings on it. Moriarty places Sherlock’s backpack on the ground, and rests his head against it.

“What, you’re not forcing yourself into my sleeping bag tonight?” John remarks snidely.

Moriarty blinks lazily back at him.

“No Johnny,” he says calmly. “That was only for that night, as a way for us to know we couldn’t attack each other. We have an alliance now, so that’s not necessary. The sleeping bag is yours.”

As he settles into sleep, forcing himself not to turn his back on Moriarty, John wishes Moriarty would be a little more aggressive. His laidback manner is making it very difficult for John to keep his rage up without feeling a little drained. Hopefully, John thinks, Moriarty’s calmness is a farce to make John drop his guard, and Moriarty soon realises that it’s pointless. Then John can get on with hating him, and win the damn Games.

***** 

Sherlock!

John’s eyes snap open. He stares at the dull grey ceiling above him and tells himself it was only a nightmare. Then he glances to the shape underneath the whiteboard and it all comes crashing back. This is one nightmare he’s actually living.

He sits up sharply, heart thumping painfully against his chest.

_Sher_ lock, _Sher_ lock, _Sher_ lock.

He wants to fly across the buildings, and he stands up to do so before he once again remembers Moriarty. He glances over to Moriarty, who seems to sense a gaze on him, as he rubs his eyes once and then sits up and looks straight back at John. John looks away, expecting Moriarty to do the same, but Moriarty continues to stare at John.

“Stop staring at me!” John snaps.

Moriarty barely even blinks at his tone, and his gaze doesn’t dart away.

“Stop it!” John repeats.

With the heavy gaze still on him, he feels trapped, like a butterfly pinned down on a sheet, like a tiger trying to pace in a small cage, like bird with its wings clipped. Anger and bitterness and sorrow swirl through his thoughts and, overwhelmed, he slumps to the ground. Head in his hands, he tries to calm his ragged breathing. He’s not going to just let Moriarty see him like this!

Quickly, he brings his hands away from his face, but finds them wet. Angrily, he wipes away the few tears that had leaked from his eyes, not wanting Moriarty to catch sight of them.

He needs to be stronger than this if he’s going to beat Moriarty. He can mourn Sherlock later, but only if he gets out of this alive.

“Right,” John says firmly, turning to roll up his sleeping bag. “Let’s get moving.”

When he glances over to Moriarty to check he was listening, he finds Moriarty watching him with a curiosity that is quickly stifled.

John doesn’t like it when Moriarty looks at him like that. It makes him feel like he’s about to be dissected.

 *****

The one thing that John hates most about his deal with Moriarty is the amount of time they spend on the ground. He gets twitchy just thinking about it. It’s all very well for Moriarty, with a twelve that tells stories of how he could kill a man in that many ways, but John only has his bow and arrow, minimal skill in knife throwing, and his climbing skills, which he’s reluctant to use with Moriarty anywhere nearby. That’s not to say he doesn’t have other skills; he still has an intimate knowledge of herbs and plants, but if someone comes at him with a knife, he’s hardly going to have the chance to stuff deathberries down their throat.

They’ve been wandering the arena for at least two days since they made their alliance. John’s surprised that the Gamemakers haven’t set anything up to draw the remaining tributes together, but they seem content to let at least John and Moriarty travel without meeting anyone. It might have something to do with the fact that Moriarty is in fact looking for a fight with any of the remaining tributes.

Having not found anyone yet, Moriarty often falls back to telling John things he’s done in the arena. Why he thinks John would want to hear the stories is a little beyond John.

“The career honestly didn’t see it coming!” Moriarty cackles. “He was fighting Irene, from one, for some weapons and I just sneaked up on him and slit his throat from behind. Irene, clever thing, ran off with the weapons the second his grip loosened. His friend, from four, came screaming at me, but wshh,” he says, making the noise of a knife whizzing through the air, “right in the head, she collapsed to the ground. It was easy in the end. People make such a big deal of the careers but they’re just as stupid as everyone else.” He sounds a little sad now, but John doesn’t see any reason to cheer the prick up.

He’s getting used to Moriarty’s company, but that doesn’t mean he likes Moriarty any more than he did when he murdered Sherlock. Despite Moriarty’s insistence that it wasn’t murder, John will never forget that it was.

“Oh you know what I haven’t told you yet?” Moriarty says gleefully.

“What?” John replies in a bored tone, only to stop Moriarty from glaring at him when he doesn’t immediately ask.

“After I got my first parachute, I headed into the forest to collect some nightlock berries. I filled the container that came with my parachute with them, and then waited in the trees for someone to pass by. The girl I dropped the parachute in front of didn’t even think twice about eating them!”

Moriarty laughs and John narrows his eyes at him as he wonders why the sick bastard is even telling him these stories. Surely he knows that John hates his guts, and doesn’t care about anything he has to say?

“I have no pity for those that can’t save themselves, or those let themselves be killed by being stupid,” Moriarty says, apparently realising John’s thoughts, or at least getting a grasp of the emotions he’s radiating.

Just how John figured; Moriarty clearly views himself as someone better, cleverer, than those around him. Perhaps Sherlock was the result of Moriarty thinking someone was as intelligent as him, John muses. If that’s the case, it seems there’s no way to win with Moriarty.

But maybe John can use Moriarty’s arrogance to his advantage, to turn the tables on him.

Moriarty swings Sherlock’s backpack from his shoulder and rummages around inside. He pulls out the silver flask, looks inside, and then drinks all the water from it. It wasn’t a huge amount, so John’s a little glad he drank it before they left the lake.

“Well I guess we’re getting some water then,” John comments dryly, still a little put out by all Moriarty’s stories of the kills he’s managed.

Moriarty grins and says, “You wait here, I’ll go get it from the lake.”

John doesn’t need three guesses to know that Moriarty’s hoping the lake is guarded and he’ll finally get a fight. John’s also guessing Moriarty might take a little longer than he needs to, so he can search for one.

Well hell, John hopes he gets one because he sure as hell isn’t stepping in to save him.

John unzips his backpack and hands Moriarty a small empty bottle of water.

“Do the iodine at the lake,” John calls over his shoulder as Moriarty leaves. John glances back to see Moriarty making a ‘yeah alright’ gesture with his hand.

John sighs and leans against the brickwork. He looks up to the sliver of sky he can see between this building and the next. He does have the urge to cat onto the lower window and use only the windowsills to climb his way up the building. Being on the ground makes him feel far to exposed. He’d get a good view of the arena if he did climb up. Just to ease his jumpiness.

John glances over his shoulder to check that Moriarty isn’t watching. Moriarty’s back is to him, and he’s crouching over the lake.

It’s risky, but John promises himself he’ll only go twenty feet or so and come straight back down.

Just as he’s preparing to jump, he spots a shadow looming across the alleyway. He stiffens instantly, hoping the source of the shadow hasn’t seen him yet.

John creeps forwards, and sure enough, the girl isn’t looking down the alleyway, but down the road perpendicular to the alley. Quietly, John pulls the wolf knife from his backpack, and edges forward. He would use his bow and arrow, but he doesn’t know for a fact that the stranger is dangerous and or unfriendly.

Just as he sees the girl’s neck stiffen in awareness, he leaps on her and presses his knife to her throat. He doesn’t press enough to draw blood, but the threat is there.

Then he gets a look at her face, and he instantly pushes her away, panting.

It’s Sarah, from his district.

“I won’t kill you Sarah,” he says, putting his knife away. When she doesn’t say anything, he continues, “There’s no point spilling our own district’s blood.”

John can’t see her face anymore, but she looks like she’s shivering.

“Sarah I promise I won’t hurt you,” John says gently, as though calming a startled elk.

“Okay,” she replies in a small voice, sounding scared. Then she jerks her head up, and the innocence is gone, replaced with a desire to kill. Her eyes burn. “That’ll make this so much easier,” she sneers, and leaps on him.

With a cry, John falls into the dust. She makes to thrust her knife into his chest, but John throws his hands up and forces back her knife point as best he can. Using all his strength to hold it back, it’s only a few inches above his ribcage.

John tries to wriggle away, but her weight holds him fast. He can’t reach his knife in his backpack without letting go of her arms, which is the only thing stopping her from stabbing him, and the bow and arrow are obviously useless too.

“Sarah—!” he starts, but cuts himself off as she starts to push harder on the knife hilt.

“I always knew you were weak John,” she snarls. “Not to kill when you have the chance? What kind of man—”

She suddenly makes a choking noise, and her grip relaxes slightly on her knife. John pushes it away and it skitters across the dirt. With it out of the way, John looks up to her face and recoils.

A bloody knife tip protrudes from her neck, and as she chokes, blood wells up at the tear in her throat. John has a sudden flashback to his first kill, the girl from two that he’d murdered to save Sherlock.

“A good man,” a quiet Irish voice says, and John instinctively jerks away from it, pushing Sarah’s body off him.

Sarah’s eyes move off John, and look towards the source of the voice. Moriarty steps forwards into the alley, smirking.

And there’s that wolf-who-unlatched-the-sheep’s-pen smile that instils fear in everyone who sees it.

Moriarty moves towards Sarah. John can only tell she’s still alive by the harsh broken breaths she takes every few seconds. Moriarty crouches by her side.

“Too bad I’m not a good man,” he whispers, with a dangerous smile, as though he’s telling her something secret.

Her eyes widen in fear as Moriarty pulls the knife from her throat, and presses it teasingly against her eyeball. Before he has a chance to dig in though, her eyes go glassy and blank. Moriarty steps over her dead body, tucking the knife into his weapons belt with a snort of distain.

“I’ve got the water,” Moriarty says, brandishing the flask and the bottle, as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

He tosses the bottle to John, who’s still lying on the floor, trying to stop his mouth dropping open in shock. Shaking his head, John manages to catch the bottle, and looks down at it for a few seconds before he remembers what he’s supposed to do with it, and zips it up inside his bag.

Moriarty doesn’t help him up, which John is glad for. John pulls himself to his feet, looking away from Moriarty, trying to disguise his thoughts.

He knows instantly that Moriarty doesn’t want him mentioning this, or asking why he did it. John’s not sure he wants to hear the answer anyway.

They had one agreement. If one of them was in trouble, the other had no reason to help them. John made no secret about the fact that he would never come to Moriarty’s aid, though he suspected Moriarty would never need it.

But John thought he was clear on Moriarty’s position too: if someone is too weak to stop themselves being killed, it’s their own fault.

But Moriarty just saved his life.

 *****

Thinking of Sherlock is still painful. In fact, painful is too simple a word to describe what he feels, like his heart’s breaking into a million pieces. Like there’s never enough air in his lungs. Like the world will never feel quite whole again.

Moriarty taps John lightly on his left shoulder, drawing him from his thoughts. John ignores him, having already seen what Moriarty was indicating: a medium sized bird hopping across the dirt ground.

John inhales as he draws his bowstring back to the corner of his lip. He focuses on the bird. It’s pecking at the ground completely ignorant of the threat.

Releasing the bowstring, John exhales the air from his lungs. The arrow pierces through the bird’s flesh, and the bird dies without so much as a squawk. Good. It means that the bird hasn’t scared off any nearby prey.

Moriarty goes forward to collect the meat, and when he returns, he hands John’s arrow back to him.

“Only a limited amount of these, eh Johnny?” he comments.

Walking on, John ignores him. But it doesn’t settle well in his chest. He finds that as he spends more time with Moriarty, it gets harder to pretend he doesn’t hear Moriarty speaking. Especially because he keeps imagining disappointment in Moriarty’s eyes when John doesn’t speak to him.

He’s seeing too much of Sherlock in Moriarty.

Sometimes he sees Moriarty as what Sherlock may have become if he’d taken a different path. That gets him picturing the cruel words that other kids must have said to Moriarty when he was a child, visualising Moriarty as deciding at one point to take the darker path, to not just ignore the words thrown at him, but stop them altogether. And though it’s wrong, when he pictures the younger Moriarty being taunted by classmates for being different, pity washes over him.

The only thing that makes him feel a bit better about drowning in pity for Moriarty of all people, is that Moriarty would hate him for it.

But the thing is, he’s well aware that sometimes he treats Moriarty as someone who has feelings deeper than the desire to kill.

A thought brings John up short, and he’s so shocked by the thought that he doesn’t realise he’s stopped walking.

“What is it?” Moriarty asks, thinking John’s seen something.

“Nothing…” John replies blankly, but his mind is moving at a mile a minute.

What he’s doing to Moriarty is exactly what others did to Sherlock.

They saw things they considered strange, unusual, wrong, and they instantly shunned him, forcing him to reject emotions as best he could so that he could survive day by day and not be filled with hurt.

What if it was only Moriarty’s surface that was murder and blood, but underneath, in the depths of him, there was more than darkness? Perhaps simple joys, and innocent thoughts, and even some small flame of humanity. John was judging when honestly, especially given his friendship with Sherlock and learning the little about his history that Sherlock  had shared, he had no right to.

Surely this was different though? Sherlock was one thing, but Moriarty couldn’t have something deeper to him. He’d murdered children in the Games left, right and centre. He hadn’t batted an eyelid at the thought of killing the boy from one, someone he’d been working with up until that point.

But then… he, John, was still alive. Sure, they had the agreement and everything, but Moriarty and the boy from one, Sebastian, must have had one too, and that hadn’t saved Sebastian. And the thought had flickered through John’s mind before, but he’s well aware of the fact that if this alliance is just a matter of Moriarty getting an easy kill at the end, then Moriarty knows by now that this isn’t the case.  

Then it must be some other reason he keeps John around. More than that in fact, because Moriarty had saved him.

Perhaps Moriarty had just wanted a fight, the by-product of which was saving John.

But then surely if he didn’t care about John’s death, he would have just left Sarah to kill him and then gone in for his fight. Two birds, one stone.

Which begs the question… why was he still alive? Why would a person clearly capable of cold blooded murder save his life?

John sneaks a glance at Moriarty, who is checking ahead for another opportunity for food.

Could it be that Moriarty actually wants him around?

But that was ridiculous, surely. Why would Moriarty want him around? John knows he's hardly great conversation, since he barely ever speaks to Moriarty, or answers his many questions. 

Then again, he does keep seeing Moriarty shooting him puzzled glances when he thinks John's not looking. Perhaps John's just a puzzle for the troubled genius to solve.

John snorts. As if he were complicated enough to require 'solving'. There had to be another explanation.

*****

Only six of them left. John always gets an ache in his gut thinking about it, because in all his plans, Sherlock had been with him. He’d never imagined what they would do when it got down to just them, but he’d just liked to have had a proper final day with Sherlock.

John sighs and yet again looks up to the building tops. They’re on the road between the cathedrals and the flats. It had taken some persuading to make Moriarty travel this way across the arena, but John really didn’t want to go into the shopping mall or forest before it was necessary. Besides, even if he knows he can’t scale them with Moriarty around, it’s kind of nice to look up at them and map out routes he would take. It calms him a little.

“If you want to get off the ground Johnny, you can go,” Moriarty says suddenly.

“What? How…?”

“Ah ah, Johnny,” Moriarty says, grinning smugly and shaking a finger at him. “I don’t spill my secrets as easily as Sherlock.”

“Why not?” John asks with a frown, trying to pretend he doesn’t care.

“I believe there was a phrase, when such people existed, that ‘magicians don’t share their secrets’.”

“Which means?” John bites out.

“Telling takes away the magic,” Moriarty sings.

John folds his arms over his chest, then thinks better of it and places them back by his side. Full of want, he looks up to the tips of the cathedral spires, but he knows he shouldn’t. He doesn’t want Moriarty finding out just how good he is. Even if sometimes John finds himself thinking that Moriarty keeps him around, not for an easy kill, but because he likes John’s company.

John turns his mind to more important things, such as why, even after three days of wandering the arena, since he and Moriarty had formed an alliance, there was little to no activity. No one had died, bar Sarah, over the last three days and it was making John nervous. Not because of the lack of death, but because of what it must signify; the Gamemakers were planning something.

But even then, surely they would have made something happen to draw all the players together? Unless…

John nods to himself; the players must already be together, dancing around each other without knowing it. The Gamemakers were keeping back because they enjoyed the tension it was causing.

He and Moriarty depart from the road and enter the maze of cathedrals. It’s much more difficult to spot anyone amongst the cathedrals, because of the varying lengths and heights of the buildings. They’re not laid out in a grid, like most of the other buildings are. So it’s both an advantage and disadvantage to them; people won’t see them coming till too late, but the same goes the other way around. Perhaps it’s not for the best given John’s revelation, but he grudgingly admits to himself that Moriarty probably reached his conclusion a couple of days ago. Perhaps that’s why he’s been looking for a fight these past three days, instead of getting caught unprepared by letting one come to him.

“We’ve got a shadow,” Moriarty says uncharacteristically quietly.

John immediately realises he isn’t talking about an actual shadow. He doesn’t turn his head to look as he wants to, but continues looking ahead as though Moriarty hadn’t said anything.

“Who?” John mutters.

“The girl from seven. Sally Donovan.”

“How do you know?”

Despite what he was saying only a few minutes ago, Moriarty explains.

“It’s quite simple. If you knew Irene as I do, you’d know this is not her style. For the others, from observing them in training, I know that the boy from nine and the girl from ten are more likely to be laying low at the moment; they had no particularly special combat skills or sneaking skills. They would never do something as bold as follow us. But the girl from seven, she’s a sly one. Besides, we have history. It can only be her.”

John nods.

Moriarty continues, “I believe she only wants me, so even though we’re allied, she won’t—”

That’s when Sally tackles Moriarty to the ground and presses a knife to his stomach.

“Oh, you are gonna pay,” she breathes.

Moriarty doesn’t show any emotion on his face at all, and barely moves other than to blink.

“It’s his fault, you know,” he says slyly, starting to grin. “He should have been looking.”

Sally gives a growl of rage and the knife sinks into his flesh, only just enough to draw blood, but still Moriarty grins.

Sally isn’t looking at John at all, and seems to have forgotten he’s even there.

“Ah, ah,” Sally tuts, as Moriarty’s hands slide down to his weapons belt, fingers flirting with one of his knives. “Touch that and you’ll lose some fingers.”

Moriarty gives Sally a look that begs her to try, but at the same time, he doesn’t take out a knife.

For a moment, which John isn’t particularly proud of, John considers leaving him there. Moriarty and he agreed straight up that they did not need to help each other if one of them was being attacked, and Moriarty more than likely has the skills to get himself out of this situation with his twelve.

Then again, Sally looks ready to slice his fingers if he goes anywhere near his weapons and…

And Moriarty saved his life when he didn’t have to. When by all accounts, he shouldn’t have.

John can’t, he just can’t. He can’t make himself leave Moriarty to die. Letting someone die, even if that someone is Moriarty, is far different to killing to protect himself. He isn’t ready, not now, not ever, to lose that last shred of humanity he can cling to in all this madness.

John, as quietly as physically possible, notches an arrow and draws back the bowstring. For a moment, he thinks of aiming for Sally’s neck, but he quickly dismisses the idea. He might hit Moriarty if she moves even a fraction of an inch. Instead, John takes aim at her lower back. Hopefully the arrow shredding through her insides will distract her enough that he can get a better shot.

As soon as he’s decided, John releases the bowstring; he doesn’t want Sally to take the extra time he’d spend deliberating to slit Moriarty’s throat.

Sally lets out a shriek of pain. She looks down to the arrow protruding from her stomach and immediately sits up and swivels her head round to face John, who’s notched another arrow and set it ready to release.

“It’s your fault you know,” John says, as he lets the arrow fly. “You should have been looking.”

The arrow goes straight through her left eye, and digs itself into her brain. Her body slumps instantly. Moriarty pushes her away, face twisted in disgust. He stands, eyes still on the body for a few moments longer, and then he looks to John as the cannon fires.

John had another arrow prepared to fire at her body, but as the cannon sounds, John carefully removes the arrow from the bow and puts it back in his collection. Then he brings himself to look at Moriarty properly.

Moriarty’s eyes are slightly wide, looking at John with confusion. He replaces it quickly with a smug grin, but John can’t help feeling put out by the surprise on Moriarty’s face. Moriarty saved his life, why should it be such a shock that John might save him back!

True, there’s the whole Sherlock issue, but John’s feelings on the matter are dulling with time. He’s starting to think that Moriarty didn’t exactly kill him, although Sherlock also didn’t exactly commit suicide either. It’s a jumbled mess that John doesn’t really have the effort to go about untangling whilst in the arena. There are just more important things to worry about.

Still, he feels Moriarty’s gaze heavy on his back as they set off again.

John lets out a half laugh, half sign of awareness, when he realises that he’s just placed Moriarty behind him, without having him still in the corner of his eye, for the first time since the Games started.

“What is it?” Moriarty asks warily.

“Nothing, I just…” John trails off, still staring on ahead. He sighs and says, “You know, when I first saw you, back on Reaping day, I told myself never to turn my back on you, because you looked like the sort of person who’d take the split second advantage without a thought.”

Moriarty doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and John resists the urge to turn around and see the expression on his face.

“I am Johnny,” he finally says, in a quiet voice. “… Or at least…”

He never finishes his sentence, and John doesn’t ask him to.

 *****

John finds himself spending more and more time shooting glances at Moriarty, trying to decipher what’s going on in his head. Every time John tries to get inside his thoughts, he ends up going round in circles. Moriarty’s thoughts are like the ocean to him: mysterious and dark.

The one thought that John keeps returning to is the one where he wonders if Moriarty actually cares for him. Because unless that’s the case, he can’t wrap his head around why Moriarty’s doing the things he’s doing. But then, he can’t wrap his head around why or how Moriarty would come to care for him in the first place.

He’s reached the point where he’d actually consider asking, but for the fact that he’s not like Sherlock, or Moriarty even, with such faith in his deductions that he’d be willing to put himself out on a limb to ask a question about one of them. He just doesn’t trust his idea that Moriarty cares for him enough to ask why.

John’s ripped from his thoughts at the sight of a small silver parachute floating down towards them. Beneath the parachute is a small silver bowl, complete with lid. Moriarty stands to grab it.

Once caught, he holds it in his hands for a second, head cocked as he sits down, presumably working out what’s inside. He opens the lid, and nods to himself, satisfied.

“Beef stew,” he explains to John.

Moriarty raises the bowl to his lips and a spoon smacks him in the face. John covers his snort of laughter with a cough. Moriarty glares at him, picking up the spoon to eat. John covers his mouth with his hands to hold back a smile. Seriously, a genius who can deduce your history by your fingers and he doesn’t even see a spoon in the bowl? How could he not laugh?

“Johnny you need to try this,” Moriarty says suddenly, a mildly surprised expression on his face.

Frowning, John shuffles over to Moriarty. Moriarty dips the spoon into the stew and gathers some up. He holds the spoon out to John, and John unthinkingly opens his mouth to let Moriarty feed him, and Moriarty obliges. John chews on the beef thoughtfully.

“’S good,” he says, having swallowed.

He looks to Moriarty to see he’s smiling. John wipes at his mouth, worried he spilt some, but there’s nothing. Moriarty’s smile widens.

“First parachute I’ve had,” John says, trying to distract himself. “Well, I mean, it’s not mine but—”

“Our agreement was shared sponsors,” Moriarty interrupts. “It’s ours.” He then frowns and adds, “This is really your first one?”

“Well,” John says awkwardly, “Sherlock and I weren’t really favourites, given our low scores and my district partner was alive for all of the time we were together so she was getting the parachutes.”

“Hmm,” Moriarty says. “Well, doesn’t matter now. No one’s going to be getting anything important this late in the Games — too expensive.”

Moriarty spoons more stew and holds it out in front of John’s mouth. John opens his mouth to let Moriarty feed him again.

It feels strangely domestic. John finds himself having to control his breathing as Moriarty continues, or it comes out in shallow, ragged bursts. In the back of his mind, he finds himself asking why. Why is Moriarty doing this, why is John letting him?

As soon as the questions are formed, he discovers that unbidden, a hazy answer is trying to push itself to the forefront of his mind. But even unformed, the answer scares him. So he forces it away as best he can by losing sight of the question and just focusing on the rhythm that he and Moriarty have created.

Still, something sticks in his chest, something that makes his heartbeat stumble.

 *****

John finds himself thinking that Moriarty looks beautiful in the moonlight, the pale light bathing his skin in silver, making it almost glitter, like diamonds. Then John catches himself thinking it, and he frowns. What a strange thought to have.

John narrows his eyes at the figure standing before the moon, who is looking out across the arena as though he might sense where the other tributes lay waiting. He marks a striking outline against the moon.

John shivers inside the sleeping bag, suddenly feeling a little chilly. Moriarty turns to look at him, but with his head blocking the moon, John can’t read his expression.

“Cold, Johnny?” Moriarty asks, but the question doesn’t hold any bite.

In fact, the name Johnny seems to have lost any sort of needling tone in the time he’s spent with Moriarty. John’s still not sure how he feels about the name though.

John doesn’t reply to Moriarty, not knowing what sort of answer he’s expecting, and unaware of how he will react to a certain answer.

Moriarty sighs, and steps away from the edge of the building. Suddenly John finds himself answering the question, without thought.

“Yeah,” he says, glancing away from Moriarty, so he doesn’t catch the look on John’s face.

Jim takes several definite steps towards John, and then he pauses.

“I’m not cold,” he says softly, his Irish accent making his words sound like the calm trickle of a stream over rocks. “… Maybe I can help.”

John doesn’t let himself think before he answers.

“Okay.”

Moriarty takes a couple of slow steps towards him, as though giving John time to take the words back. He doesn’t.

When he reaches the sleeping bag, Moriarty crouches down and carefully slides his way into the bag, behind John. John’s body temperature sky rockets, and he can feel his cheeks turning red with warmth. It feels so comfortable that John finds himself wondering why they weren’t always doing this. He almost expects Jim to wraps his arms around him, until he fully understands the thought and realises that it was a stupid thing to think.

“Thanks,” John mutters, closing his eyes and trying to force himself to sleep.

Moriarty doesn’t reply for a few moments and John focuses on the image of the moon, burned against his retinas.

“You’re welcome, Johnny,” Jim says quietly.

As though given permission, John drifts off into sleep.

 *****

John glances around at the multi-storey buildings and wonders if they’re near where Sherlock died. He can’t tell because all the buildings look the same. But as his gut twists, John reminds himself that he’d rather not know how close he is to the source of such pain. Especially since thinking of Sherlock drags up all kinds of thoughts that here and now, would be better left unthought.

But now the thought of Sherlock is there, he can’t repress the urge to ask a question best left unsaid.

 “How did you do it?” John asks blankly. “Sherlock,” he adds, knowing that Jim probably won’t know what he’s talking about otherwise.

After a moment or two, Jim says, “Have you ever heard of a story called ‘the Princess Bride’? It’s been passed down through my family for generations, but I believe it used to be a well-known story before…” He gives a surprisingly gentle smirk. “Well, you know. Panem and all that.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” John says, raising an eyebrow.

“Hmm,” Jim murmurs to himself. “Then you probably don’t want to know.”

After a second, “It was some idea you got from this story then?” John asks dubiously.

“I recognise genius ideas when I see them,” is all he says.

A heavy rain starts to fall, with the threat of thunder and lightning. He and Jim ignore it, focused on finding one of the remaining tributes, other than themselves. John’s finally realised that Jim’s seemingly crazy need for a fight actually has a sensible reason behind it; the quicker the others die, the quicker one of them gets out.

They’re back at the flats with fire escapes, heading on towards the next section of flats, albeit with zig-zagging to hopefully find themselves face to face with a tribute. John had refused to let them travel beyond the cathedrals, so soon after the Sally incident, they’d circled back around.

John doesn’t know how long it is that they’re walking in the heavy downpour, but long enough for them to reach the next section of flats. At one point, as he notices a fox-like creature stick its nose out from an alleyway, John realises he’s shivering. Following this realisation, he sneezes. The fox-like creature’s head snaps to face him, and then it darts off back down the alleyway.

Jim grabs his hand to stop him, and forces John to face him.

“Are you cold?” he asks, worried, and then for a moment, his eyes go wide in an expression of surprise. He quickly wipes it away and replaces it with a more neutral expression as he faces the black sky and says, “We should find shelter.”

“W-what k-kind?”

“The best kind,” Jim says, sounding like the answer is obvious.

John’s not a hundred percent sure if he’s joking or not.

“Okay,” John replies, and still shivering, he starts to lead them out of the flats.

They take the straightest path possible, no longer worried about finding another tribute. John quickly leads them through the changing buildings — which change once from small detached houses to joined country shops while they are in the section — to the sprawled out market.

Thunder rumbles as John directs Jim to the market entrance with the broken glass. Jim doesn’t look at all pleased at having to crouch through broken glass, but he does it nonetheless, waiting for John to follow before he heads further into the darkness.

John doesn’t want to head all the way to the Walmart, so he and Jim head down the unlit corridor for a few minutes, to get them out of the way of would be attackers, before heading into a small shop stocked with strange cards. The cards have words on them but John can’t read what they say in the low light.

Jim immediately starts working on a fire, pulling the necessary resources from his backpack. While his back is turned, John strips himself down to his underwear, dropping the wet clothes on the floor. They make a smacking noise as they hit the ground. Slightly self-consciously, John sits beside the newly built fire to warm up. He feels a little better as Jim discards most of his clothes too and joins him but on the opposite side of the fire.

There comes a point when John stops shivering, and at this point, he gets up to arrange his clothes by the fire to get them to dry. Jim follows his example.

They sit in silence as they wait for their clothes to dry. Every so often, John catches Jim’s gaze on him before it quickly flicks away to something else.

John touches his clothes every so often to check whether they’ve dried yet. He also does it every time the weight of something unsaid gets too much, so he can distract himself. He almost breathes a sigh of relief as he touches his clothes again and finds them dry and warm. He puts them on quickly, finding Jim halfway through the process when John is fully dressed.

The sit down again on opposite sides of the fire, but John feels that this time, with nothing to distract them, Jim might almost tell him what’s been preying on his mind. He says might, because he’s noticed even in the small amount of time that he’s spent with Jim, that Jim has certain things that he does not like to do. Sharing his thoughts is one. Appearing weak is another.

But Jim surprises him.

“May I…” he trails off, looking surprisingly open about his hesitation. “May I touch you?”

John is honestly shocked into silence for a moment.

“That depends where you want to touch me,” he says carefully.

Indicating on his own body, Jim touches the space just behind his ear. Seeing nothing wrong with it, John gives his consent.

However Jim doesn’t touch him then. He glances around the shop, then at the fire. He gets to his feet and wanders the corners of the shops, seemingly aimlessly. But when he returns, John sees something clenched in his fist, which turns out to be dirt, that he drops on the fire and it extinguishes itself with a gentle hiss.

Finally, he kneels in front of John and carefully, as though he were approaching a wild dog, he leans forwards and cups his hand behind John’s ear. Even more slowly, he places his lips beside John’s ear.

John’s starting to understand why Jim asked his permission to do this. It feels almost intimate.

“If we talk like this,” he whispers, almost a caress in John’s ear, “the Gamemakers will assume one of two things. Either we are talking meta on the Games that they won’t want the sheep — the citizens — to hear, or we are talking of something unspeakably private.”

Jim falls back to his natural kneeling position. Hesitantly, John leans toward him, placing his hand behind Jim’s ear.

Drawing a shaky breath, he asks, “And which are we doing?” and moves back to observe Jim’s expression.

Jim seems to forget the privacy, mouth slightly open, before he replies quietly, “The former.”

John leans towards him again.

“What about the Games are we talking about?” he whispers.

Jim copies his movements, reaching behind John’s ear to hide his words from any watching cameras.

“What happens when we become the final two.”

Thunder crashes above them, and they both look up, as though they expect to see something other than darkness.

Slightly annoyed now, John leans forward more rashly, and is less concerned with keeping his voice low as he comments, “We already have an agreement about what happens.”

Jim pushes him away angrily, no longer bothered about hiding their words, caution swept away in a wave of anger.

“Yes, well circumstances have changed, John,” he snaps.

John’s brought up short, and blinks rapidly as he processes what Jim just said.

“You just called me John,” he whispers, not out of a desire to keep their conversation quiet, but out of shock.

“That’s your name isn’t it?” he asks defensively.

“Yeah but…” John doesn’t know what to say. He hesitates, then asks, “What circumstances?”

“No circumstances!” Jim growls.

“You just said—”

“I didn’t say anything!”

John watches Jim’s expression as it flickers through anger, irritation and something else. John forces himself to his feet, glaring at Jim. Jim stands to face him, glaring back.

“Well then what the hell are we talking about?” John snaps, rage getting the better of him.

“Nothing!”

“For fuck’s sake, Jim! I had enough of this keeping thoughts to yourself with Sherlock, and I don’t need another genius killing himself because he thinks he can handle everything himself!”

Jim’s expression is suddenly wiped of anger. He takes a tentative step towards John.

“What?” John asks defensively.

“You called me Jim,” Jim says softly, in a voice that sound almost like reverence.

“That’s your name isn’t it?” John mocks, parroting Jim.

John can say honestly, without a doubt, that he did not expect Jim to do what he did next.

Jim wraps his arms around John, fingers rubbing soothingly at the nape of his neck for a moment, before he leans in and kisses him.

John doesn’t react for a moment, so startled that he can’t think what to do. When his brain finally starts working again, he shoves Jim away from him with such force that Jim falls into a stand of cards and crashes to the ground. The thunder covers the sound of his fall.

“What was that?” John asks in a dangerous voice as Jim pulls himself to his feet.

Jim doesn’t reply. John repeats the question.

“Remember the unspoken agreement we had about not mentioning how I saved your life?” Jim says smoothly, as though nothing happened.

John nods, confused.

“Consider this a part of that,” Jim says.

“What—?”

Jim ignores him completely, pulling out the sleeping bag and settling down to sleep. John blinks at him, saying nothing, until he’s sure that Jim’s no longer faking sleep, but actually asleep.   

 He has no idea what just happened.

The storm rages on, unperturbed.


	7. Alone Together

As per Jim’s wishes, they don’t speak about last night. John’s not sure he even wants to anyway, so Jim doesn’t need to tell him twice.

They pack up quickly, in silence, and leave the shop. John heads to the right, towards the broken entrance they came from, whereas Jim walks left, heading further inside the mall. When they realise they’re not heading in the same direction, they stop and face each other.

“Where are you going?” John asks warily.

“To the forest,” Jim replies casually.

“No!” John snaps. “No we’re not going to the forest!”

Jim’s stare is icy.

“We’ve been avoiding the forest for days John,” he says, upper lip twitching in distain. “And I’m sick of it.”

All of John’s instincts scream no, but he knows there’s no questioning that gaze, especially since he’s always refused Jim a reason for avoiding the forest. Seething with silent anger, John follows Jim further into the mall, towards the forest.

It figures that when Jim does something stupid that he doesn’t want to talk about, John has to pay for it.

“How did you get to the forest before?” Jim asks, eyes flicking every so often to check corners and shops for enemies as they pass through the market.

“We’re not going the way I went before,” John says firmly.

When John spies the Walmart in the distance, he does breathe a small sigh of relief that he doesn’t have to see where Molly and Greg died. He knows it’s stupid, but he almost feels like he’d see their dead, empty bodies, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. He’s seen one to many bodies like that.

They pass the Walmart without so much as a whisper. The silence feels heavy, weighted, though, as though it’s repressing something. John keeps a hand on his bow, though he’s sure that the oppressive silence has nothing to do with hidden enemies.

The exit they eventually stumble across is intact, so after carefully checking to see that no one’s nearby, John smashes the lower door windows with a kick. He crawls through, swallowing down his fear as he looks out to the forest. He can’t see more than twenty feet or so into it.

He really doesn’t want to press forward. He was marginally okay when he went hunting before Sherlock had… But then he’d stayed only to the edges of the forest. Jim wants them to cut straight across.

He just has to make sure they avoid that place.

The air is heavy with unspoken thoughts of bitterness and icy anger, and John is almost loathe to disturb it, not wanting to be the first to crack. But his fear threatens to choke him unless he warns Jim of what could possibly go wrong.

John whips round to Jim, holding back the strange urge to take Jim’s hands in his own as he explains to him.

“Jim, if you see any berries, especially berries on the floor, do not go near them. Don’t even look at them. Leave immediately, go around them, run as far away from them as you can. Do not touch them for the love of god.”

Jim raises an eyebrow, but agrees that he’ll follow John’s directions.

They set off into the forest. John contemplates starting up a conversation, asking Jim the same inane questions that Jim once asked him, but the mood Jim’s radiating kills that idea pretty quickly. Besides, he doesn’t see why _he_ has to be the one to try and keep the peace, when Jim’s the one who screwed it up in the first place.

But what had Jim been thinking? Did Jim honestly think that he would reciprocate? Or was it part of some larger game Jim was playing with his mind?

Thing is though, it feels to John like it’s working. He’s been noticing for a few days that Jim is rather attractive. Hell, he’d noticed that the first time he saw him. But it’s more than that now. John feels that instead of wanting to gaze at his beauty for aesthetics’ sake, he instead wants to reach for it, and claim it as his.

Remembering he’s supposed to be leading, John decides to bear left at a random point in the trees. He’s pretty sure the berries would be somewhere to the right, and he wants to stay well clear of them.

Thoughts returning to Jim, John crosses one arm across his chest and rubs his other arm, feeling uncomfortable. It’s one thing for him to notice that Jim is attractive, and another entirely for him to want Jim. Sure, he doesn’t really blame Jim any more for Sherlock’s death, but Jim has openly admitted murder of other tributes.

But then, John has murdered too, even if only to protect people. His breath hitches as he reminds himself that he had even killed to protect Jim.

Sherlock had never killed anyone. Even when John was in danger, Sherlock had chosen what he thought was logic, over mindless violence.

Perhaps John’s more like Jim than he is Sherlock.

The thought of Sherlock makes his stomach clench. Even now, learning to accept that Sherlock’s death was almost by choice, John still gets a stab of misery in his gut every time he thinks about Sherlock. Every time he remembers that he’d considered sacrificing himself to get Sherlock through to the end.

Trying to distract himself from his thoughts, John looks to the forest. Along the ground, he notices several familiar plants. He decides to take the opportunity and starts to gather more herbs. After all, his supply from the previous visit had not been large and was already gone. Used up on healing Sherlock’s cuts and bruises from his training at the flats. Of course, he still has the few poisonous plants and berries, and it looks more and more like they’re going to remain unused. The thought doesn’t upset him in the least.

Jim doesn’t slow down for him, so John only takes a few of what he thinks will be the most important flowers and herbs, and then hurries to catch Jim.

He and Jim march on. John tries as hard as he can to avoid where he thinks the berries are, but the truth of the matter is, he doesn’t really know. He’s working on guesses. And in addition to the queasiness of being in the goddamn forest, he feels like ants are crawling under his skin because he hasn’t been in the air, in the sky, for too long. He feels safe up high.

Maybe he should take Jim up on his suggestion that John just… go for a while, to get it out of his system. It seems Jim already knows, so he’s already half out in the open. The only thing he’s achieving by avoiding climbing is hiding just how good he is, and he doesn’t know how important it is that he does. 

He just doesn’t know where he stands in all this. Is he just a toy to Moriarty, someone to help alleviate the boredom, until it’s time to be killed? Or does Jim want him to stay around because… Because he cares for him?

Or does John just want it to be the second thing? And with that question fully formed in his mind, John starts to feel a little dizzy, because he’s starting to understand what those hazy, unrealised thoughts he’s been having over the past few days are. Because either Jim’s been filling the hole that Sherlock left, or carving a new one, because there’s some part of John that wants Jim to stay with him. Forever.

“What’s that?” Jim says, slowing to a halt.

John starts, suddenly aware that he’s no longer leading, and he doesn’t know where they are.

Jim creeps forward, towards the thing he’s spotted. John peers around him and his heart leaps into his throat, pounding furiously.

Christ no.

No.

Jim bends down, fingers reaching out to brush against the spilt berry juice.

“NO!” John screams, tackling him to the ground.

Jim’s eyes narrow, his eyes like black holes, irises swallowed by pupils. He hisses angrily at John, like a cat defending its kits.

John slams their palms together, linking fingers, refusing to breath in, in case he too becomes subject to the berries. He doesn’t quite know how they work after all. He hauls Jim to his feet and starts to sprint, squeezing his hand to make sure he doesn’t let go. Jim scratches at him with his free hand, struggling and growling threats and insults.

John has a sudden rush of affection for Sherlock, because if John was even half as difficult as Jim, Sherlock had his work cut out for him.

Jim slashes at John’s skin, and John hisses in pain. Jim must’ve got through his skin, because there’s a deep stinging in his arm. Still, John doesn’t let go. He draws strength from the thought of Sherlock doing this for him.

They burst into light, the end of the forest, when Jim stops trying to claw at him. John quickly looks to him, and when he sees that Jim’s eyes are wide in confusion, no longer clouded with madness, he drops Jim’s hand and collapses to the ground, using a tree to keep him in a sitting position. He puts his head in his hands, curling into a ball as he hyperventilates.

“I fucking told you,” he chokes out through ragged breaths, “that if you saw any fucking berries that you should fucking run and not fucking touch them!”

He feels tears springing to his eyes, though he’s too busy panicking to wonder why.

Jim could have been gone, lost to madness. Dead.

In his peripheral vision, he sees Jim reach out a hand as though to comfort him, but he changes his mind at the last second.

John continues to hyperventilate.

This time, when Jim holds out his hand, he does touch it to John’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with it though.

“John I’m… I’m okay,” he says softly.

It’s the most gentle that John’s ever heard him. He has to stifle a choked laugh when he remembers the first time he saw Jim, when he saw the sly grin of a wolf with no remorse. He never would have imagined the boy with that grin could show, what appeared to be, kindness.

John looks up into Jim’s eyes and finds to his surprise, that they are shining with genuine concern. There’s a cautious innocence in them that John knows for a fact is not faked, with the same sudden clarity as when he realised who Sherlock’s brother was.

It makes any words he might say stick in his throat.

Instead of speaking, he places his hand at the back of Jim’s neck and slowly pulls Jim’s face down to meet his. Their lips meet with the softest touch, as light as a feather. It makes John’s heart leap into his throat.

Jim pulls back, looking alarmed. He searches John’s face for something. Whatever it is, he seems to find it, as he leans into John, pressing their lips together again.

Almost inexperienced in the area of kissing, John treads carefully, leading the kiss but slow enough that Jim knows that he can take control if he wants. Jim doesn’t though, and John takes the opportunity to explore Jim’s mouth in a way that he never would have thought he’d want to. Jim tastes exotic, like spice and unspoken desire. It makes John crave more.

He digs deeper, pulling Jim closer to him. Jim takes the opening and their roles reverse, Jim now exploring John’s mouth. John doesn’t know what it is he finds there, but Jim growls and holds John close to him, so he must have liked it.

John’s fingers inch up Jim’s neck to dig into his hair. It’s as soft as snow.

He doesn’t know how long they spend like that, but when they finally pull apart, John’s lips are slick, and Jim’s are a heavy pink. Jim’s eyes are black with desire.

It reminds John forcefully that this man has murdered probably the most people in the Game, possibly sort of including John’s best friend, but he finds to his surprise that his attraction barely flickers at the realisation.

The truth of the matter hits him then.

Sherlock, as much as John cared for him, through no fault of his own, made John feel bad about himself. Because compared to Sherlock, who had the skills to gut someone open but never did, John was a killer. But compared to Jim, who threw his heart into the Games without a second thought, who butchered the competition as easily as walking, John is a good man. More than that, he’s a great one.

And John could never stand to think of himself as a bad man.

 *****

John jerks suddenly at the hissing noise from the meat Jim’s cooking over the fire. Rather than throw him apologetic look, Jim sends him a smirk. Prick.

Even after the events that just transpired, John is a little surprised at himself to find that word heavy with the same affection that he once held for Sherlock. But he supposes he’s been on the road to ruin a long time now, ever since he allied with Jim, so he really shouldn’t be surprised.

Speaking of events that had just transpired, John’s thinking that it’s better to dive in all at once rather than let fear confine him to dipping a toe into the water. He and Jim are in this together now, completely. And if he’s going to trust Jim, he’s going to give him everything. His final secret.

He’ll just wait until they’ve had lunch. No point ruining lunch.

John rummages around in his grey backpack, finally finding the herbs he’d collected at the bottom. He chews some leaves into a paste and crushes the same plant’s roots with his golden knife. Mixing them together, he spreads it over the gouge marks in his skin, courtesy of Jim. He hisses through his teeth as they start to sting.

He looks up to find Jim watching him, and this time Jim does give him an apologetic look. It looks surprisingly good on his face.

Carefully, so as not to remove the paste from his arms, he places the knife back at the bottom of the backpack.

Jim tosses him a slab of meat and John munches on it thoughtfully as Jim collapses down next to him. Trying to think how to start the conversation he wants to, John gets distracted by playing with his backpack strap. The three stitched black marks suddenly draw his attention. He points them out to Jim.

“D’you know what this is?” he asks.

Jim pulls his own backpack towards him, checking the mark on the shoulder strap before replying.

“Roman numerals. This is ten,” he says, indicating to his backpack, “and yours is three.”

A thought flashes through his mind. Frowning, he wonders how to go about checking it.

“You had an interview, with Caesar,” he starts.

“Yes,” Jim says, eyes wide as he nods patronisingly, “we all did.”

“Did you mention, say,” John says nervously, “a favourite food?”

“What, didn’t care to pay attention to me, Johnny?” Jim teases.

“Well at the time, I thought you were a dangerous man whose attention was better directed at someone other than me,” John says defensively. He snorts, and flashes a grin. “No wait, I still think that.”

“Why you…” Jim says, sending him a joking glare.

“But seriously,” John says, redirecting the conversation. “Food.”

“Yes, John, I mentioned to Caesar that my favourite meal at the Capitol had been duck leg confit in orange sauce. Much better than the slop we get back home.” Jim pauses thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, Caesar promised he’d find some more for me, but he never did. I knew he was a liar.” Jim winks.

Having his suspicions confirmed is like a punch to the gut.

John digs around in his backpack, reaching underneath the sleeping bag, to the bottom where his secrets lie. He pulls out the black package of pellets, and hands it to Jim without looking at him.

Jim squints at the label. Then he does a double take.

“John,” he says slowly. “Where did you get this?”

John starts tracing patterns into the dirt on the ground.

“Had it since the beginning. Was in the backpack.” He tries to smile. “Always knew the backpack wasn’t meant for me.”

Jim is silent for a moment.

“Seems a bit strange for the Gamemakers to set something up like this. Presumably no one got the backpack intended for them,” he says eventually.

John thinks for a moment and suggests, “Maybe the Gamemakers meant for it to be that way. Maybe they thought people would realise and would set up trades or something, or at least go after their own.”

The look Jim gives him is one John used to get from Sherlock, the one that says ‘I didn’t expect to find you interesting, but somehow you are’.

“Well,” John says awkwardly, not quite ready to see that look on Jim’s face, “I guess we’ll have a good final night dinner.”

Jim’s fingers tighten on the package. John realises too late that maybe he shouldn’t have brought up the final night.

Then again, not talking to Sherlock about the final night didn’t work out too well either. But with three still left to kill, John’s sure they have time to discuss the end.

“Hey,” John says suddenly, remembering the knife, “I guess if this is your backpack then—” John pauses to rummage around in the backpack and pull out the golden hilt wolf knife. “This is yours.”

He tries to hand it to Jim, but Jim holds up his hands in a wide-eyed refusal.

“No Johnny, it’s yours. You keep it.”

“But—”

“I want you to have it.”

Dropping his eyes to the knife, John gives a small nod, and tosses it back inside the backpack.

“Thanks,” he murmurs.

John looks up to the sky, holding up his right hand to block out the sun. The sun has passed the highest point in the sky, but it won’t set for a while. Perhaps now would be the time to tell Jim.

“Jim,” he starts nervously, unsure how to continue. After a few moments, he manages to find more words, “Remember when you said I could get off the ground if I wanted? What did you mean by that?”

Jim copies John’s gaze, looking into the sun, slitting his eyes so the light doesn’t burn.

“I couldn’t say I know what I meant,” Jim admits casually. “All I know is you hate being on the ground, very twitchy, and you keep looking up at building with this longing on your face. That and the whole time I was searching for you and Sherlock, I only once found you on the ground, and that was out of necessity.”

John hesitates for a moment, but then pushes forwards.

“Well,” John says warily, “I guess I should show you.”

He pushes himself to his feet and makes a gesture to show Jim that he shouldn’t follow.

Well, no point waiting.

John starts to sprint towards the flats, aiming for a brick wall by one of the entrances. He uses a kick to launch himself up the wall, and he precise jumps to the wall opposite. He monkey leaps over the next wall and then runs towards the draining pipe running up the wall. He scales it in only a few seconds flat. He judges the gap between his roof and the next in the few seconds that he has before he reaches it, and when he reaches the gap, he kicks off with his right foot, surging across the empty air. He makes sure to roll onto his shoulder as he falls onto the roof, just like he was always reminding Sherlock to do correctly.

He slows slightly, and when he reaches the next roof edge, he turns around and drops down so that he’s hanging off it. From there, he alternates between jumping from wall to wall, and using windows and ledges to drop himself down. Legs tingling, he hits the ground a few moments later.

Breathing deeply, both to calm himself and catch his breath, he jogs gently back over to Jim.

If Jim were the sort of person to gape, he’d be gaping right now. As it is, his eyes are wide in an expression of surprise, and he looks like words are failing him. His fingers twitch by his side as his eyes flit from John to the buildings and back again. Watching his fingers, John thinks he recognises what Jim doesn’t know he wants. Preparing himself for rejection, John steps towards Jim and holds his hand out in front of Jim’s own.

It take Jim a moment, but his gaze eventually settles on the hand offered to him, and then moves to his own hand. He doesn’t make clear any reaction as he threads his fingers with John’s, but John can tell that Jim’s content. He squeezes Jim’s hand gently, and stares out at the flats. He draws in a deep breath, making sure he’s prepared for what he’s going to say next.

“I could teach you… If you want,” he whispers, voice betraying his nervousness.

Jim doesn’t reply for a long time, following John’s gaze to the flats. John starts to wonder if he’ll ever reply, and if showing him was a mistake. Before he can start to panic though, he checks Jim’s expression and realises that Jim is thinking through something logically before he’ll give his reply.

John tries to think what Jim’s thought process would be. He imagines that Jim will probably want to learn immediately, but Jim’ll also wonder if his enthusiasm may be interpreted by John as only using him to get a greater range of skills before he kills him, which Jim wouldn’t want John to think. He could be wrong, but perhaps that’s why Jim’s taking so long to reply.

If John were more confident about what they had going on between them, he might have turned to press a small kiss to the corner of Jim’s lip. But as it is, he doesn’t think he and Jim have that sort of easy relationship with each other yet. They’re still stealing awkward glances and leaving words unsaid.

 “It’s okay to answer yes,” John says casually, wanting to make the words softer but somehow knowing that Jim will appreciate this tone more.

This time, it’s only a few seconds before Jim answers.

“I’d like to learn,” he says.

“I’d like to teach you,” John replies, an uncharacteristically shy grin managing to find its way onto his lips.

 *****

For all their similarities, Jim and Sherlock have wildly different learning techniques.

Sherlock was very much like a dog tugging at the leash, urging its owner to keep pace with them. He would watch John demonstrate techniques a maximum of once, before immediately trying it out for himself. He was the physical embodiment of a leap without looking philosophy.

Jim is almost the exact opposite. He sits patiently as John explains each step of a jump or twist, as he points to which body parts should go where. He watches John demonstrate several times before he tries himself, and he always takes the lowest risk when practising. Where Sherlock would practise laches, hanging drops, forty feet up in the air so that if he missed, he’d drop like a stone and break his spine, Jim practises his not more than ten feet up, in relative safety.

All in all, Jim’s method does give John more overall peace of mind.

Jim makes a final circuit across the row of council buildings. John’s sure he’s showing off a little because instead of taking the route that John would instantly flag as the simpler, quicker route, he drops down to lower roofs, uses wall to wall jumps and climbs draining pipes. Also, when he tucks and rolls on the last jump, John catches a grin on his face as Jim stands to face him.

John rolls his eyes but holds out a hand for Jim to take. Jim links their fingers together, looking around for something before his gaze returns to John. Jim smiles, that strange smile that John thinks is so innocent that he must be the first to receive it.

It’s strange how much quicker the step from comfortable allies to partners of a sort is, compared to the seemingly long and arduous days of transitioning from unwilling associates (on John’s side at least) to accepting allies. But overall, it does make sense, to John at least. It’s like, he’s so far gone by this point that it seems pointless to fight against what he’s feeling for Jim.

Jim’s eyes drop to their hands, and after a few moments he raises them, but once again, his eyes dart around the arena, looking for something. John wonders for a moment if he might be looking for cameras. Both of them know they would never see the cameras, but Jim must not feel comfortable with someone watching any intimacy he would want to share. John doesn’t really blame him; he himself is finding it hard to do much more than hold Jim’s hand with the Capitol sheep presumably dissecting every gesture they make.

To John’s surprise though, when Jim looks at him again, he slowly raises a hand to John’s cheek, and rests it there. For a moment, they stare at each other, silently feeling each other out for where they stand in this all.

John suddenly becomes aware of that fact that where before Jim’s eyes had looked as black as a raven’s feather, and been as mysterious as the ocean, now his eyes seem to John to be the colour of  sugar syrup, and Jim’s thoughts swirl readily in them.

John can’t help it; he presses a chaste kiss to Jim’s lips, a little scared to find himself the focus of such intent gaze. He draws back quickly, but Jim’s hand drops from his cheek to his waist to pull him back. His other hand is still holding John’s.

They crash together like the sea and the sand. John’s only seen them in picture books, but he imagines that the force thrumming through him can’t be unlike that. Jim licks his way into John’s mouth as though he wants to taste his very thoughts. John releases Jim’s hand to snake his arm around Jim’s neck, pulling him closer, whilst Jim’s hand falls to John’s waist with the intent of doing the same.

John is a little hurt when Jim pulls away abruptly, until he notices the expression on Jim’s face. Jim’s head is cocked, listening for something that John doesn’t hear. In an instant, Jim becomes distracted, thrusting John’s bow and arrows into his arms.

“Notch an arrow,” he hisses, slipping behind John and directing him to the edge of the building.

John doesn’t bother to ask why; in his time with Sherlock and Jim, he’s learnt it’s better to follow instructions first, ask questions later. He nocks an arrow, drawing back the bowstring to his cheek and letting Jim guide his target to…

A boy, dashing along the dirt path. John is about to let the arrow fly, but Jim presses his lips to John’s ear and whispers a gentle, ‘Wait’. A second later, his instruction becomes clear, as a girl follows behind the boy, brandishing an axe and screaming words that the wind whips away.

Jim’s hands once again settle on John’s waist, and John tries not to jump. He’s honestly unused to people touching him there, and when he’s not expecting it, it’s a strange feeling. But a nice one too.

The girl catches up with the boy in no time; he was clearly malnourished, and she had rage on her side. One thwack from her axe to his back brings him toppling to the ground. His arm crashes into the dust as the canon sounds and a small round object slips from his grasp. It looks like an apple, though it’s hard to tell from such a distance.

The fact that the boy’s dead doesn’t stop the girl from continuing to slam her axe into his unmoving body. Chunks of bloody flesh fly as she chops haphazardly at his neck. When she finally wrenches his head from his body, it’s not a clean cut, not by a long shot. She raises it triumphantly, gloating to thin air.

“Wait,” Jim murmurs, fingers squeezing at John’s hips, his breath hot against the back of John’s neck.

John frowns, not understanding why he shouldn’t shoot, but he obeys anyway.

The girl freezes, looking as though she’s heard something. She glances up to the rooftops, not far from where John and Jim are standing, and then bolts, still grasping the boy’s head firmly in her hands.

“Why did you tell me to wait?” John whispers, not angry, just confused.

“I… I have a theory.”

John blinks in surprise; Jim has never seemed the sort of person to talk of theories rather than facts.

“What?” John asks.

Jim doesn’t reply, so John thinks maybe he can work the answer out for himself. He reminds himself of what just happened, wondering if he’d seen anything odd. Well, the girl, who John thinks is called Kitty but he doesn’t really remember, had acted rather strange, wanting to decapitate the boy after he was already dead. That wasn’t something someone normally did, even when they had gone slightly mad from being in the Games.

“The berries,” John guesses. “You think she ate some.”

“Close Johnny,” Jim says, fingers squeezing at John’s hips in a gentle, encouraging gesture. “More than that, though. I think she was given some.”

“Given some?” John frowns.

“Irene,” Jim explains.

“Why do you think that?”

“Nothing concrete John,” Jim says carefully. “That’s why it’s only a theory.”

“So…?” John leads.

“Well, I am aware that before the Games began, Irene formed an alliance with someone, but I didn’t bother to find out who it was because I assumed that the alliance was simply a rouse on Irene’s part.” Jim pauses, frowning. “Well, I still think it is, but I think it’s slightly different to what I’d first thought. The reason I believe that Irene has a hand in this is that, when scared, people tend to return to places that are comforting to them, and from what I gather, if she’d eaten the berries by stumbling across them, that place would have been the forest, where the berries are. Yet she ran in the opposite direction to the forest, and towards the Cornacopia, which incidentally is where I believe Irene is hiding. Which would mean she probably considers Irene more of a safety, which suggests Irene may be the source of the madness.”

John nods, understanding why Jim had been hesitant to call this anything more than a theory.

“So this is all somewhat hypothetical, because it hinges a lot on things we don’t know for certain,” he summarises.

“Exactly.”

Jim glances over the edge of the roof, to the headless body sprawled in the dirt.

“I’m going to see if I can gather any information from the body. It most likely won’t be helpful, but at least we’ll know something.”

John spins round and grabs Jim’s arm, worry clear in his expression.

“What if she’s still there, waiting?”

Jim raises an eyebrow, grinning.

“What, you don’t think I can take her Johnny?”

John folds his arms across his chest and tries not to pout.

“I just think we should be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” Jim says, pressing a soft kiss to John’s lips, catching him off guard. “I can handle her. And if you’re really worried, you can cover me.”

Grudgingly, John agrees.  

Jim collects his weapons belt from the corner of the rooftop before he swings down to the ground using a series of window ledges. As it catches the sun, John realises that Jim must’ve had quite a few sponsors at one point to get that. Not for the first time, John wonders if his alliance with Jim had in fact lost him sponsors. But he knows by this point, sponsors are essentially meaningless. Even a bowl of soup would be too much to ask for.

Sighing, John places his bow and collection of arrows to the side of the roof, and watches as Jim carefully makes his way back up to John after observing the body for a few minutes.

John thinks he’s never been more surprised in his life than when there’s the sudden boom of the cannon, with no apparent cause. Heart racing, almost paralysed with fear, John leans over the edge of the building, looking for Jim. His heart manages to calm itself somewhat as he sees Jim on one of the lower rooves, looking just about as confused as John himself is.

It hits them at just about the same time what must have happened.

“The berries!” John calls to Jim. “They must have killed her.”

“Irene probably fed her too many,” Jim replies breathlessly, as he makes his way up to John. “I think Irene was planning for her to kill us first, and then get an easy final kill.”

John paces across the rooftop, waiting for Jim to get back. Finally, John turns back to find him curled up in the nearest corner of the roof, his head in his hands.

A small spike of alarm runs through him. If John had to put words to it, he’d say that Jim looked upset. But Jim wasn’t the sort of person to show his thoughts so clearly.

Nevertheless, John crouches down beside Jim, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Jim,” he says softly, “what’s wrong?”

Jim doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and John wonders whether he even heard until:

“Only Irene left,” he whispers.

John frowns, confused. Then it hits him, and his throat tightens.

Once Irene is gone, one of them will have to kill the other.

John slumps down beside Jim, staring off into the sky as he dissects his feelings on the matter. With Sherlock, his thoughts had always been that they would get to this point and then… He hadn’t really thought further. He had occasionally, privately, entertained the idea of letting Sherlock win. The truth of the matter was, he wasn’t sure he could have killed Sherlock. Maybe he would have, when it came down to it, but maybe he wouldn’t.

John shakes the thoughts away; it does no good to think about what he would have done had he been in this position with Sherlock, as Sherlock wasn’t here anymore. He has to focus on Jim.

Of course, when he and Jim had first teamed up, John had thought that he would fight till the bitter end, and that he would do his damnedest to kill Moriarty and win the Games. But now…

John tries to imagine stabbing Jim in the gut, or slitting his throat, and the thought makes him shudder. Despite himself, he is in fact a little surprised. He shouldn’t be, but he is.

John takes a moment to consider why he’s fighting so hard in the first place anyway.

Harry, she’s getting old now. Too young to grow up alone, but old enough that she can survive without her big brother. She’d have Dad with her to fill the hole. John’d fight to stay alive for Harry, but her existence doesn’t guarantee he’ll kill Jim. God, she’d be upset, devastated of course, but John doesn’t think he can spill Jim’s blood for her.

Thinking of his dad makes his eyes narrow in concentration. Throughout the whole thing, he hasn’t thought much about his dad. Truth of the matter is, John’s not sure how his dad would react to what John’s doing in the arena. His dad’s very much a healer; probably wouldn’t approve of John’s killing. Then again, he did marry John’s mother, and John knows he has a lot of her in him. If he didn’t come back, his dad would cope, definitely. He’s not the sort of person to keel over with grief. He’d be upset, no doubt about it, but he’s probably been mentally preparing himself for the worst the moment John got called for the Games. Probably already has someone filling in for John full time. John doesn’t think he can murder Jim for his dad either.

Life. To know that whatever happens, he will be free of the Games… Sort of. They’ll still be there to remind him every year what he’s done, even when he’s left the arena. And shit, he’d have to be a mentor to so many poor kids that enter the Games, but never leave. He’s really not sure he can handle watching so many children die, year after year. He definitely can’t murder Jim for that.

John glances at Jim, who’s still got his face buried in his hands. He hardly wants to die, but he can’t imagine killing the man next to him for anything really. Funny how things change.

Perhaps his best hope is that Irene kills Jim for him. Even the thought twists like a knife in his gut, but that would be a way out of this mess. Then again, if Irene did kill Jim, she’d inevitably kill John too. Especially because John would probably attack her in a fit of rage, without thought or direction.

Perhaps Sherlock’s method is best. Don’t talk about it and let the chips fall where they may. Or, if he really wanted to do Sherlock’s method properly, he’d choose his death and face it head on. Maybe he and Jim could play a game. What was it Sherlock had said?

Pick a poison. Maybe Jim wouldn’t win the second time round.

“You know, this is ridiculous,” John says aloud. Jim looks up at John with a questioning gaze. “I’m not going to think about which one of us should or will die.” John pauses, eyes flitting to Jim’s before he gazes out to the now setting sun. “Tell me something about you,” he requests, arms moving to hug his knees.

Jim doesn’t do something stupid like ask what he should say. He sits in silence for a few moments, contemplating, as he too stares at the pinkening sky.

“I have cats you know,” he says suddenly, and it does the job John wanted it to; it throws him completely off guard.

“I must’ve misheard,” he teases. “I thought I just heard you say you have cats.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Jim replies tiredly.

John doesn’t doubt that, though he has guesses.

“Go on then,” John says. “Tell me about your cats. I want to know everything.”

Jim doesn’t say anything though. Once again, his eyes flick to Jim, and then back to the sky.

“You don’t have to tell everyone,” he says, guessing that Jim doesn’t want such a personal part of him broadcast across the districts.

“No,” Jim says, voice etched with sorrow. “No, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Before John can feel any alarm at those spoken thoughts, Jim starts to tell his story.

“It started when I was twelve,” he says. “I was…” He seems to search for the right words, and settles on, “Avoiding some of my fellow students.”

John of course dissects the code immediately, and sorrow washes over him. He removes one hand from his knees and places it over Jim’s hand. Jim moves his hand, and for a moment John thinks he’s rejecting the gesture, but instead he links their fingers together. John can’t help but give a small smile.

Jim continues, as though nothing had happened, “I was angry. You’ve never seen me angry, so you can’t imagine what it looks like. But when I’m angry, things always end up dead.” Jim gives a small, sadistic laugh. “I actually showed amazing restraint by not making it the people who were chasing after me. I’m honestly not sure how I did that now.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Perhaps I thought that if I didn’t act on my thoughts, my district wouldn’t notice that I was different. Better.” When Jim speaks again, he continues as though he hadn’t gone on a slight tangent. “So it was perfect when I spotted it at the end of the alley, a small cat. A kitten. The thing was about this big,” he says, indicating with his hands, one still holding onto John’s, a size about eight inches. “I walked over toward it carefully, expecting it to run. When it didn’t, I grabbed it by its scruff, preparing to snap its neck… Then it started purring.” Jim actually chuckles. John raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. “I was so shocked I dropped it.” His voice turns fond. “It didn’t seem to care much, just padded over to me and started rubbing itself against my legs, still purring.” Jim pauses. “I picked it up again to kill it, still ready to see the light in its eyes die… But it just kept on purring, curling into my touch, like it _wanted_ to be there. I just… I couldn’t kill it after that.”

John gets it. First thing to show affection towards Jim, he wouldn’t have been able to, no matter how dark his thoughts were.

Jim then says quietly, “Sometimes you remind me of them.”

For a moment, John is shocked and slightly confused. Understanding soon dawns though; John had been just like that kitten in a way. He was never meant to survive his encounter with Moriarty, but something he did made Jim stop for a moment and let him live.

“I hope they’re doing okay,” Jim says lowly. “They probably would’ve turned up at my place the day after I left. Probably think I’ve abandoned them.” He breathes in deeply, then exhales a sigh. “They would’ve found someone else to feed them.”

“Maybe,” John agrees, “but cats have surprising loyalty. If you return, they’ll be there.”

They don’t mention the fact he said ‘if’.

“What’ve you left behind?” Jim asks, when the silence gets too great.

“What, didn’t care to pay attention to my interview?” John jokes, even though the thought of it now does twist his gut.

Jim gives him a pointed look.

“Okay, okay, point taken,” John acknowledges. “…My sister,” he admits. Twisting the strip of material on his wrist, he says, “This was hers. She doesn’t… She doesn’t really expect me to come back, you know. That’s why she gave it to me.”

“Tell me about her,” Jim says softly, sounding like he genuinely wants to hear. John’s not sure he really does, but he tells him anyway.

“Harry? Ah, she was a firecracker. Never really knew what she was gonna do next. She always got these crazy ideas in her head. The climbing thing? Got that from her. Never wanted her doing anything stupid where I couldn’t get to her, so when she started dabbling, I had to dabble with her. Did come in handy for delivering medicines though. Avoid the crowds,” he jokes. Thinking of Harry though, his thoughts soon turn melancholy. “This whole thing’s probably killing her. First Clara, then me…”

“That was Clara’s originally,” Jim theorises correctly, gesturing with his free hand to the strip of material on John’s wrist.

“Yeah,” John breathes. “Yeah…”

Warily, John hooks his finger under the strip and twists it, to show Jim the stitched lettering he’d decided to keep hidden. Jim’s eyes dart across the words, reading them in a few moments and then he nods to himself.

Trying to distract his thoughts from Harry, John says, “Tell me what district three’s like,” as he pushes the yellow checked material back into place, so the words are kept secret.

Jim’s hand tenses slightly, but John pretends he didn’t notice.

“It’s hot,” he starts, voice hesitant. “But it’s cooler if you live by the coast,” he continues, voice changing into something longing. “There’s a whole row of victors’ houses along the coastline. Sunsets there must be something to behold… All that colour bleeding into the ocean.” He tilts his head back, looking at the false milky way. “You can’t see the stars… Too much light,” he murmurs. “We’ve got forests surrounding the district, but I’ve never seen them. Never really cared much for them. I’d rather be working on the electronics.”

“You’re good with that kind of thing then?” John asks.

Jim looks down to meet John’s gaze with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

“Johnny, I’m the best there’s ever been.”

“Modest too,” John notes.

“Well you saw what happened to Sebastian. I told you that I fixed up his arrows with the electronics from the plates at the Cornucopia.”

To his slight surprise, John doesn’t feel any twinge of guilt when reminded of what Jim had done to that boy.

“Good job,” John murmurs. He then realises what he’s said and hurries to explain, “I mean, that must’ve taken some careful work with the plates and some clever wiring with the arrows.”

“It did,” Jim nods, sounding pleased. John thinks he likes the fact that someone recognised the effort he’d put into that.

“But, wait,” John says, confused. “Weren’t the careers all at the Cornucopia?”

“They ran off,” Jim shrugs. “They saw me take down two of their strongest, along with miscellaneous others. They knew they couldn’t take me, and made a run for it. Smart decision on their part, which also had the unintended side effect of making the Cornucopia mine.”

“Not too smart,” John mutters. “Running from you, they bumped into me.”

“Oh Johnny, do tell!” Jim says, with a wicked grin.

“It’s not half as interesting as it may have sounded,” John warns.

“Tell me anyway.”

So John recounts how he saved Sherlock from the girl from four, and then how they found themselves being chased by the boy from two. John pauses at the point where he and Sherlock had met Greg and Molly, feeling the stirrings of grief within him. Greg and Molly had seemed like good people, and he still feels resentment towards the Gamemakers that allowed them to die such pathetic deaths, mad and not wholly themselves.

But he finishes the story, burying his feelings as he goes. Otherwise, he might say something stupid and the Gamemakers will see fit to make a building fall on him.

“That’s when we got to the forest,” John says finally, unwilling to continue the story further.

But Jim prods anyway.

“That’s when you first came across the berries,” he surmises.

John grunts in agreement.

“… Johnny?”

“Yeah Jim?”

“I’ve just realised something,” he says softly.

“What?”

John would be worried but for the fact that Jim sounds so calm.

“It wasn’t Sherlock who touched them, was it?”

John tenses, the question unexpected.

“No, it wasn’t,” he admits stiffly.

Jim doesn’t say anything, just squeezes John’s hand, and John finds himself relaxing. He stares up at the stars, and suddenly realises how late it is.

“C’mon,” he says, pulling Jim to his feet. “We should sleep.”

They pull out the sleeping bag and John crawls inside, followed by Jim. He closes his eyes, and tries to find sleep.

He’s been expecting it since before the incident in the forest, so he’s not surprised when Jim’s arm curls around his stomach in a vaguely protective gesture. John gains an unexpected amount of comfort from it and, without thinking, he returns the favour by locking his fingers with Jim’s.

It’s the most comfortable night’s sleep he’s had since Sherlock died.

 


	8. Stairway To Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were under the impression that (or would simply like to pretend that) John and Jim get a skipping-off-into-the-sunset ending, you maybe shouldn't read this chapter...

When he wakes, John is tempted to pretend that the Games haven’t got a whole lot more dangerous, now that it’s down to the final three. He wants to just bask in the warmth of the sun and Jim’s affections, without a care. Forcing himself from their sleeping bag before such desires can become overwhelming, John glances up at the sky to get an idea of the time. It looks to be early, several hours before noon. Of course, time in the arena is subject to the whims of the Gamemakers, so it could be only a few hours until sunset.

John takes the time, while Jim is still asleep, to check through their supplies. Wildlife has been getting scarce, and he isn’t sure how much food they have left for the two of them. When he checks, he discovers that, bar the duck leg confit, they have enough food for two more days, if they strictly ration themselves. Though the likelihood is that they won’t last that long. Irene is sure to be coming after them now.

John tries not to feel the curling of distress in his stomach. He turns to Jim, watching him to try and get a handle on his fear.

Jim sits up suddenly, his eyes darting wildly as he searches for something. Then his eyes settle on John, in the corner of the roof by the backpacks, and he relaxes. He looks so content, John almost doesn’t want to start the conversation he knows he has to.

“Jim,” he says firmly. “Tell me about Irene.”

Jim rubs his eyes and stretches, eyes heavy-lidded with tiredness.

“I’d be jealous if I weren’t so tired, Johnny,” he says, wriggling out of the sleeping bag.

John can’t help but smile.

“I’m flattered you think that I’m worth being jealous of,” he remarks.

“Well who wouldn’t be after their own little soldier, who knows not only how to heal all kinds of cuts and bruises, but also fight with the best of them?”  

“Oh, are you the best of them then?” John teases.

“My score speaks for itself,” Jim notes, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah well, my score argues with your judgement on my character,” John replies, still grinning.

Jim frowns, looking as though he’d forgotten about John’s own dismal score. He soon brightens though.

“The greats always are overlooked.”

“So you’re the best, and I’m the great?” John checks, trying not to laugh.

“I call them as I see then Johnny,” Jim grins.

“You’re ridiculous,” John snorts. He soon sobers though, remembering Irene. “No but Jim, seriously, we do need to talk about Irene.”

Jim comes over to John and slings the black backpack over his shoulder. John takes the grey backpack that, even though he still considers it his, he knows now is really Jim’s. But Jim had refused it, just like the knife. John does wonder why. He shakes the thought away as he picks up his quiver of arrows along with his bow, knowing that he’s got to focus on more important things. Jim slides his weapons belt on.

“We’ll head off this way,” Jim says, indicating a direction just past the cathedrals but towards the Cornucopia. “And we’ll talk about Irene on the way.”

John nods his assent.

They start off, clearing the gaps between the buildings with, weaving through the twists and turns, and instinctively knowing what the other is about to do and making sure to leave room for them to complete the manoeuvre. It’s the most in tune they’ve ever been. John feels slightly guilty as he notes that running with Jim has a completeness that he didn’t quite have with Sherlock. He and Sherlock were always slightly out of sync, too fast or too slow, never anticipating each other’s moves in quite the right time frame. Maybe that was John’s fault for always feeling like he had to protect Sherlock, look after him, whereas John knows instinctively that Jim can look after himself just fine, if he has the motivation.

Their rhythm breaks at the rumble of an explosion from somewhere behind them. Surprised at the sound and vibration, John mistimes his landing and skids across the cold rooftop on his shins. He hisses in pain, quickly taking a look down at his legs to check that there’s been no major damage. As luck would have it, it seems he only scraped off a few layers of skin. Stings, but not a problem.

John steals a glance at Jim, who’s stopped to look in the direction of the explosion, eyes wide in shock. Nervously, John copies him.

In the distance, in their section of the arena, a cloud of smoke and dust billows into the sky. As John watches it, stunned, another explosion goes off, and a building directly in his line of vision tumbles to the ground, smashing into other buildings as it falls. John gapes for a moment, before his common sense falls into place.

“Run!” he commands Jim, setting off once again towards the Cornucopia. As another explosion goes off, John curses. Of all the times for the Gamemakers to decide to start playing God. “Shit, she’s gunna know we’re coming,” he spits.

Jim hums in agreement, too distracted with trying to outpace the collapsing buildings to talk. Or so John thought until he starts giving instructions quickly.

“John, Irene is clever. Possibly cleverer than Sherlock. She can fight, she can think, and she’s probably got a plan to kill me already.”

He pauses, waiting for John to realise the implications of what he’s said. John is a little distracted with clearing a wall that was apparently put on the roof for no reason, but he realises where Jim’s going with this.

Jim continues, “She won’t be expecting you. She might have heard or seen us together, but it would be easy to convince her that we’d parted ways. In addition to that, she’ll probably have underestimated you as a player.”

John doesn’t say anything, hoping Jim will think he’s too busy focusing on not falling to his death, rather than simply being in shock.

“John, surprise is the only thing we have over her.” Jim tucks and rolls as he hits the next rooftop, and as he gets to his feet again, he laughs. “Well, I use the word surprise loosely, as she knows where we are now.” He pauses, to let his next few words sink in. “Or, she knows where _I_ am.”

John takes a quick look over his shoulder to judge how far ahead of the falling buildings they are. There’s about an equal distance between them and the collapsing buildings, and the Cornucopia.

“John,” Jim says quickly, before John can head off.

John is so distracted by the presence of some heavy emotion held in his name that he almost misses the ledge he’s trying to grab onto. Pulling himself up, he gives a pant of acknowledgement.

“John, whatever I say to her… Just…” Jim stops speaking for a moment as he tucks and rolls. When he gets to his feet, he seems more sure of himself; his voice sounds stronger. “Just remember it’s not true.”

“Okay,” John says.

Before he can change his mind, John diverts so that he’s no longer running towards the Cornucopia with Jim, but across the council building section of the arena, towards the forest. He swallows down his fear, promising himself he won’t wander in. All he needs to do is hide away somewhere till he can get the jump on Irene.

Despite trying to force the thought from his mind, he can’t help but wonder what Jim is planning to say to Irene that would make him feel like he needed to tell John he would be lying. What is Jim planning?

John snorts. Typical. Yet again, he’s been left in the dark as to what’s going on in some genius’s head. He really hopes Jim knows what he’s doing. And, more than that, he really hopes that Jim isn’t pulling a Sherlock. Even the thought makes him feel like all the breath’s left his body.

If that’s what Jim’s planning, he’ll kill the bastard himself. No way someone’s pulling the same trick on John Watson twice.

Suddenly flooded with fear that that’s Jim’s plan, John urges his legs to move faster. He can barely draw breath fast enough, but he refuses to have another genius’s blood on his hands. He will reach the Cornucopia first, and if it seems like Jim’s planning on a suicide mission, he’ll step in and makes sure it damn well doesn’t happen.

He reaches the edge of the council buildings faster than he’d anticipated and he has to brake suddenly to ensure he doesn’t run over the edge of the building. John glances back quickly to see if he can still see Jim, but in the gathering rubble, it’s impossible to pinpoint exactly where he is. He assumes Jim will be making his way down towards the Cornucopia though.

That is, if he hasn’t already been swallowed up by the explosions. The thought is too horrible to even contemplate, and John forces it away, refusing to believe it.

He takes a quick survey of the surrounding buildings, and decides the easiest way down would be falling down one roof level at a time, since the rooves are mostly staggered, and then using a set of stairs on the far side of the length of the building at the lowest roof level. Then he can run straight down the divide between the council buildings and the forest.

He sets off, eyes darting every so often to the horn, which is closest to his side of the Cornucopia and blocks his vision of what’s happening in the centre. When he finally finds himself on the ground, he takes a moment to brush himself off, before he starts off for the Cornucopia. He can still see the back of the horn that shelters the remainder of the objects from the start of the Games, and reminds himself to keep it so that he’ll be hidden by it as he approaches Irene.

“James, darling!”

John freezes at the sound, the cool female voice easily cutting through the heavy silence permeating the arena.

Jim’s already reached her.

John starts to run, ignoring the way his breathing comes out in ragged gasps, determined to reach the Cornucopia before Jim can do anything monumentally stupid. Perhaps Jim does have a plan that doesn’t involve him pulling a Sherlock, but John doesn’t want to take the chance. Because it seems to him that sometimes the smartest people are the dumbest.

“Irene,” Jim drawls. “How lovely it is to see you.”

“James,” Irene comments casually, “you’re looking well,”

John reaches the edge of the buildings and steps into the centre of the arena. Pressing himself right up against the part of the horn closest to the forest, he moves around the circle of the arena anticlockwise, passing the slim section of forest and heading towards the sliver of the arena that’s composed of the markets. He’s hoping that since Jim arrived from the council buildings side of the arena, that Irene will have readied herself for him by facing towards him, and away from the shops. Then John can get up behind her and…

And do whatever needs to be done.

“Can’t say the same for you,” Jim replies, and Irene barks out a short laugh.

“Good thing I was lying about you looking well then,” she retorts.

John peeks round the corner, just enough to see where Irene’s standing and which way she’s facing, but he quickly darts back as Irene pretends to survey the arena.

“What’s this?” she says in a mocking tone. “Where’s your little pet?”

John stills, curious as to what Jim has to say.

“You mean Johnny-boy?” Jim asks, sounding incredulous. “Why Irene, are you jealous?”

John has to force himself not to mouth ‘Johnny-boy?’, because he doesn’t recall Jim ever referring to him as that. He’s glad to be honest.

He shakes his head, focussing on the task at hand. He looks to his bow and arrow, weighing up the pros and cons. He knows he’s a good shot, but he’s worried that Irene might suddenly move and he’ll hit Jim instead. He’s also not sure how quickly she’ll die if she just gets an arrow through the chest; she might have time to hurt Jim.

“Jealous? Of course not James,” she scoffs. “After all, I have a pet of my own.”

“Had,” Jim corrects. He sounds gleeful. “My, my, somewhat attached were you?”

John rummages through his backpack, and his gaze finally falls on the golden knife, with a wolf’s wicked grin carved into the hilt.

“Of course not,” Irene growls. “Slip of the tongue dear, slip of the tongue.” She seems to take a few seconds to calm herself because when she next speaks, her tone is flat. “I ask simply because I’d heard through the grapevine that you yourself were rather attached to your ‘Johnny-boy’. I was rather expecting him to come here with you.”

“I don’t know why you expect that, when we’ve already made clear that I consider Johnny-boy a pet, not an equal. You’d hardly bring a pet to a formal affair, would you?” Jim asks, his voice sharp as knives.

John takes a moment to clench his fists and slowly breathe in and breathe out before he lets any emotion take over him.

“Well, people do get so sentimental about their pets, don’t they?” Irene says.

“Hmm,” Jim hums, but in a way that implies he doesn’t in fact agree. “Well, Johnny-boy’s not here, since the silly thing got it into his head that our relationship was more than it was. Poor thing’s moping in the cathedrals somewhere, probably crying his eyes out.” Jim’s voice is smooth, but with a hint of danger, like laying out honey for a wasp trap. “Once we’re all through here he’s going to make an easy final kill for me.”

John forces the panic down that’s screaming ‘he’s been lying the whole time, this is his real plan!’, and focuses on the constants, on what he knows. He knows he saw genuine care from Jim, back by the forest, and Jim told John himself that he was going to lie to Irene. And more than anything, he refuses to believe what he’s feeling is nothing like what Jim feels. He knows Jim feels as strongly as Sherlock did, just he buried it deeper, and he’s burying it right now so they can get Irene.

“What makes you so sure you’re going to win, James? That ‘Johnny-boy’ won’t be my easy kill?”

John takes the knife in his hands, weighing it up. It feels heavier than he remembers.

“Because the best person will win,” Jim laughs.

Carefully, John edges round the Cornucopia, checking quickly that Irene’s not looking his way. She’s not; she’s too invested in her conversation with Jim. John takes a moment to breathe long and deep, because his hands are shaking. When the tremors die down, John finally, with a heavy heart, steps out into the centre of the arena, out of Irene’s line of vision.

The sound of musical laughter shocks him for a moment, before he realises it’s Irene. Her laughter is a surprisingly beautiful sound.

"Exactly, James," she says. 

John shakes his head to clear it, and tiptoes closer to Irene, golden hilted knife held tight in his hand. He tries very hard not to focus too clearly on what he’s doing, or he’ll drown in questions of morality and feelings of sorrow. After all, Irene is not actually attacking him or someone he cares about; for the first time, he is not killing to protect someone directly.

He thinks this right up until he sees the glint of a knife in Irene’s hand, pressed up against her right thigh, so that it’s hidden to Jim. Checking along the ground, John spots Jim’s weapons belt several feet away from the two, along with several miscellaneous weapons that are presumably Irene’s. They’d obviously agreed to dispense of their weapons for the time being, except Irene had cheated, and John didn’t know if Jim had cheated too. Normally, he would guess yes, except that he’s convinced that Jim wants to come out of this alive.

John continues to creep forward.

And then John looks at Jim for only a second, and he sees something that makes his heart race with fear. Jim is looking right at him, and wearing an obviously exaggerated expression of surprise, his mouth dropped into an ‘o’ shape.

What is Jim playing at…?

And Irene, as anyone would, instinctively turns to look at what Jim’s pretending to be shocked by. She catches sight of John immediately, as he’s only a few feet in front of her now, and her face contorts into a frown, looking more confused than anything else. She looks like she’s about to say something, but whether to him or Jim, John doesn’t know. But before she can speak, Jim slips up behind her, places one hand on her cheek and one at the top of her head, jerks his hands sharply and snaps her neck.

John stares, blinking slowly, as her knees collapse and her body slides to the floor. Mouth open, he turns to look at Jim. Jim shrugs.

“What the hell did you do that for!” John snaps. “I was right there!”

Jim shrugs again, but he looks almost guilty, as though he were hiding something.

“After all that, didn’t even use the damn knife,” John snorts, turning the blade of the golden hilted knife so the sunlight shines off it.

Jim is silent for a few moments, looking torn. Suddenly, words burst forth, as though he couldn’t hold them back any longer.

“Did you ever think that it might be a good thing that it wasn’t used for killing?”

John frowns at the knife, put out by Jim’s question. What a strange thing for him to say; the knife was clearly designed to kill people. The razor sharp blade makes that clear, as if the snarling wolf carved on the handle didn’t. The Capitol wanted it to be used for spilling blood in the Games.

Tentative understanding blossoms. John becomes sure of his theory when Jim starts speaking again.

“I’m glad it was you that found the knife,” Jim admits. “If it’d fallen into my hands, it wouldn’t have stayed as it is now.”

How strange, that one of the most dangerous weapons in the arena had only ever been used to crushing herbs. But strange as the thought is, John feels a sense of pride that things had turned out this way.

John looks over to Jim, who’s staring at the sky as though he expects to see something other than blue.

“What are you doing?” John asks, frowning slightly.

“… I’d sort of hoped that…” Jim trails off and smiles sadly.

“That what?” John pushes.

Jim takes his hand and pulls John towards him. He reaches his other hand up and runs his fingers through John’s hair, then places his hand behind John’s ear to hide his words.

“If the government were weakening, they might have thoughtlessly allowed _two_ victors,” Jim whispers.

“That’ll never happen,” John snorts.

Jim leans back and looks to the skies.

“I don’t know. It feels like it could be close.” He huffs a small, sadistic laugh. “But not close enough.”

Silence opens up between them, and John searches desperately for a way to close it.

“What do we do?” John asks, squeezing Jim’s hand.

“Well, we’ve got five hours,” Jim grins, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

John looks around the Cornucopia, and imagines all the bloodshed that this arena had seen. This place is sad enough as it is. He wants to see some beauty.

“Well, I’ve never seen the cathedrals from the inside. I bet they look just as good on the inside,” John suggests.

“Is that what they’re called?” Jim asks absentmindedly, eyes still on the heavens.

“’S what Sherlock called them,” John says, still feeling that twinge when saying his name. “But don’t you think the word sounds right?”

“Yeah, it does,” Jim says. “Cathedrals, eh?”

Jim catches his gaze, and smiles again, but this time, John can see happiness somewhere in the irises.

“It’s a plan.”

 *****

John was right; the cathedrals do look just as good on the inside. He finds himself shivering as he steps inside the huge building, and it’s not just because of the cold. Jim darts to his side and presses close against him, and John’s shivering eases.

Sunlight streams through the colourful glass windows, casting blues, pinks, greens and yellows across the floor. John looks to the windows, holding a hand up to block most of the sunlight. Along the edges of the towering windows, there are words written, probably telling something about the pictures in the glass, but the writing’s too old for John to understand. The Capitol probably copied it off some real cathedral that’s been gone for centuries. Perhaps there would come a day where some future civilisation would thoughtlessly copy the words of the Capitol buildings, not realising the horror behind them.

The thought reminds John of something that’s been weighing on his mind. He and Jim still haven’t talked about how they’re going to decide who leaves the arena. But Jim had seemed to consider it a legitimate possibility that they could have both left the arena alive. John had never even thought before about whether the Capitol would one day weaken and crumble; the Capitol to him had always seemed so eternal. Jim however, had apparently noticed something, some seed of discontent perhaps, that made him think that maybe the Capitol was not as all powerful as the districts were led to believe. And if that were the case…

“Jim?”

“Mmhm?” Jim replies, gazing at the marble statue of someone who was apparently important.

“If you’re the one who makes it out… Could you look after Harry and my dad for me?” He takes a deep breath and continues over what Jim’s about to say. “It’s just, if I’m not there, then Harry’s gonna have to take the tesserae to keep her and Dad ticking over… But she’s so young. She’ll only be thirteen by the time the next Games come around. Too young to have a hope of making out… But if you could help her, get her some food every once in a while…”

“Of course I will, Johnny,” Jim says. He goes slightly pink and says in an undertone, “If you’re the one who gets out, will you… Willyoufeedmycats?” he finishes in a rush.

John turns and kisses Jim lightly, then stands back to bath in the colourful light, with a grin.

“Of course I will, Jim,” John says. He looks up to the inside of the steeple. “When we’re done looking around the cathedrals, we should get to the highest point in the arena.”

“Is that the top of the building where I first found you?” Jim asks.

“Yeah,” John nods, dragging Jim down the rows of benches the line the walls. “Yeah, it is.”

“Any reason why we’re going there?” Jim inquires.

“I dunno,” John says, looking out of those beautiful windows one more time. “I’d just kinda like to see the sunset.”

The last sunset of the Games.

 *****

Standing at the base of the intricate cathedral, John and Jim stare up to the small ledge that’s their aim.

“Race you up there,” John jokes.

“Only if you’re prepared to lose,” Jim replies, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh that’s it, you’re on!” John says laughing and he leaps for the first easy ‘ledge’, which is really a series of people carved into the stone, before Jim can reply.

The people’s feet make a good hold, and John hoists himself up quickly so he can get the momentum he needs to grab for the next best hold. Having climbed the building before, John does have a slight advantage on Jim, but Jim’s also a slightly slimmer, lighter build, and therefore can scale the building a little quicker.

It’s close, but John just beats Jim, his knowledge of the building eventually getting the better of Jim’s swiftness. They pull themselves over the lip of the building, one after the other, panting and laughing.

“What was that Jim?” John needles. “’Only if you’re prepared to lose’?”

“Oh sush,” Jim snorts. “You had the advantage and you know it.”

John leaves Jim spread eagled on the ground, while he fishes around in his backpack. Tucked into one corner, he finds what he wanted. The black package.

“How ‘bout a nice Capitol style meal?” he mutters to himself, then turns to grin at Jim. “Finally getting your favourite meal,” he says, waving the package at Jim, before tossing it over to him.

Jim lets out an ‘oof’ as it hits him in the stomach. He sits up and peers at it, before ripping it open. John crouches beside him, building a small fire with the remaining flint, kindling and wood they have. Jim meanwhile tips out the contents of the package onto the ground. There are two packets: one with small, grainy, orange pellets, and one with long, thin, brown strips. Jim takes a bottle of water and tips an equal amount into each packet. The orange pellets gradually liquefy, and become what is presumably the orange sauce. The brown strips expand into, what John assumes to be, shredded duck.

They heat both up over the crackling flames, albeit with some difficulty. They end up using a water container as a pan, which does an okay job. John’s stomach starts rumbling pretty soon, but luckily by that point, they decide that the cooking is probably done.

John swallows the duck in a few moments, and he has to admit it tastes pretty good. He imagines it would have tasted even better had it not come in dehydrated form.

“Better or worse than in the Capitol?” he asks, prodding Jim jokingly.

“Better,” Jim says after a few moments deliberation.

“Really?” John asks disbelievingly, eyebrows raised.

“Well, I prefer the atmosphere… the company… here.”

John smiles at him.

“You know what,” he says. “You’re right; this is the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”

 *****

An hour later, John lies with his head in Jim’s lap, on the ledge where he and Sherlock last spoke before Jim came along. He’d decided back in that cathedral that he wanted his last moments with Jim to be in the same place he spent his last proper time with Sherlock. He has to hold back a snort, because in a sense, he’s doing exactly what his sister was doing all those… However long ago it was, with her strip of ribbon from Clara. Closure.

Jim cards his fingers through John’s hair, looking out to the setting sun. From John’s position, he can imagine for a moment that he’s out of the arena, and he and Jim are back in one of their districts, finally finding a moment of serenity. He can almost imagine his time with Jim will last forever.

The sky above them is a soft pink, but closer to the horizon it gets closer to blood red.

“Tell me about the Princess Bride,” John says suddenly.

Jim’s hand stops suddenly, and he glances down at John worriedly.

“Are you sure?” he asks, aware what John’s really saying.

John unfocuses from Jim, and looks back to the sky above.

“Yeah,” he says softly.

So Jim tells him. Either Jim’s heard the story many times, or he’s got a very good memory, though John expects it’s the latter. Jim describes everything in perfect detail, even the parts that he pauses to add aren’t strictly necessary. He explains about how a beautiful woman named Buttercup continually bosses the farm boy around, saying ‘farm boy, do this’ and ‘farm boy, do that’ and all he would ever reply was ‘as you wish’. He explains how Buttercup realised she loved him, and Westley, the farm boy, had loved her all along. He left to find money for them to marry, but his ship was attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts, famed for letting no man live. Buttercup vowed to never love again, but was forced to marry a prince because of the country’s law. However she was kidnapped first, by three men, and a masked man in black followed them all. Defeating the first two men, the man in black met the third man and was promised that if he won a battle of wits, then he could take the Princess and leave.

Jim stops speaking so suddenly that John knows what is coming next. He looks back to Jim, urging him to continue. When Jim starts to speak again, John looks back to the sky.

The masked man offered to poison one of the glasses of wine, and whoever ended up dead was the loser. The third man agreed.

Jim knows the passage remarkably well, listing every insane argument the third man had for which goblet of wine he should or should not choose. Eventually he distracted the masked man and switched the goblets, and drank happily. The masked man told him he lost, but then the third man started to laugh. The masked man asked why the third man was laughing. ‘I switched the goblets,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s so funny.’ He continued to laugh, and then dropped down dead. ‘To think the poison was in your goblet all along,’ Buttercup said incredulously as the masked man untied her.

Jim stops again, but John knows he’s going to continue this time, so doesn’t make a move.

“’Both goblets were poisoned,’ the masked man said. ‘I have been building up immunity to the poison for many years.’” Jim says quietly. He obviously expected John to say something, because when John says nothing, he says quickly, “John, I—”

“So, if that makes you the masked man, does that make me Buttercup?” John says slowly, a small smile playing across his face.

“John, I think Sherlock _knew_ that—”

“I know,” John says firmly. “I think he did too.” He pauses, then continues, “For a while I thought…” He trails off. “Because he said to me, that he wanted a meaningful death, if it came to it, and after he died I thought… I thought he was a fucking idiot because he’d got the most meaningless death of all. But looking back, I think he got the death he wanted, because he chose it. I think he knew he didn’t have to pick a poison, that we could both leave unscathed but… But he wanted a death on his own terms, and he wanted me to have the best chance of survival, and I think he thought that you could give that to me. And he was right. And he got what he wanted.”

He looks to Jim, who’s looking down at him with what John thinks is probably the saddest expression he’ll ever wear. He smacks Jim lightly, and laughs.

“So c’mon,” he says. “How’s this story end?”

 *****

“So they end up together,” John says with a grin. “Beat death and live their lives together.” He sighs. “If only we could do that.” He looks up into Jim’s wide brown eyes. “Jim, I wanna say something, and I’m pretty sure you’re gunna kick up a fuss, but I’ve made up my mind, okay?”

“What is it?” Jim asks, almost nervously.

“I’ve got some deathberries in my backpack, from when Sherlock and I were travelling through the forest.”

Jim’s eyes widen and he looks panicked.

“Those aren’t the berries that you almost—”

“No,” John replies shortly. “I don’t know what those berries are called.” He sits up so his back’s to Jim and grabs his backpack, unzipping it so he can rummage through. He finds the jar he’d put them in, the jar that had once held a strange brown substance that he didn’t know the name of, and unscrews it. Feeling guilty at the trickery, but not guilty enough to stop, he swallows a couple down while Jim can’t see, then screws the top back on and hands it to Jim.

Ten minutes.

Jim holds it up to the light.

“Okay,” he says. “So you have these berries. And?” He tosses the jar back to John as he says it.

“Well… Something that Sherlock said kinda stuck with me. I told you before: he said he wanted a death on his own terms. And, well, that’s what I want.”

Jim’s fingers tighten around John’s shoulders.

“No John. No you’d better not be saying what I think you are,” he threatens.

“Well it has to be one of us!” John retorts. “Why not me?”

“Because you have your sister and your dad, and a district that cares about you! You have people to heal, people to love! What do I have?”

John shuffles his position so he’s facing Jim head on. He reaches a hand up and trails it down Jim’s cheek. He smiles sadly.

“My dad and my sister can live on without me. The district has too many other things to worry about. There will always be healers to heal, and love? I’m not sure there’ll be anyone I could love if I left the arena. But you… You have something that needs you.”

“My cats?” Jim spits. “Are you killing yourself so I can continue to feed my cats?”

John laughs.

“Yes and no. I was actually talking about something bigger,” he admits. “Though yes, it sounds stupid, but your cats need you.”

“… What are you talking about?” Jim asks suspiciously, eyes narrowed.

“Well,” John grins, “it’s not just Sherlock who’s said things that have stuck with me. You know what you said?”

Jim shakes his head, so John leans towards him, and once again, covers his words with a hand behind Jim’s ear.

“That the government may be weakening,” he whispers.

“And?” Jim hisses back.

“Well, I figure, who’s gonna be needed when the end is coming?” John says in a low voice. When Jim doesn’t reply, John answers for him. “A genius.”

“What about healers, surely if a rebellion is coming, which I’m not even sure it is, surely healers are more important?” Jim demands, as quietly as he can manage whilst still sounding angry.

“Like I said, there will always be healers. But what a rebellion needs more than anything is not just a leader, but someone smarter, someone who can direct the leader, whether they’re aware of it or not. And that can be you.”

“Well what makes you think I’m going to just let you swallow these?” Jim asks furiously.

“Thing is Jim…”

“No,” Jim says, comprehension dawning.

“Yes.”

“Show me your tongue!” Jim demands, and John complies. At the sight of John’s unnaturally red tongue, Jim buries his face in his hands and lets out a moan.

“It’s funny,” John snorts, “I thought back with Irene that you were going to do a Sherlock on me, but then I ended up doing it on you…”

“It’s not funny!” Jim snaps.

Sobering, John says, “I know it’s not.”

“What am I supposed to—? How do I—?”

John shushes him gently, a little surprised to see tears building up in Jim’s eyes. He places his right hand against Jim’s face and rubs his thumb along the cheek, smearing any tears before the camera can see them. The yellow checkered fabric around his wrist suddenly draws his attention.

Dropping his hand down, he unties the fabric and pulls Jim’s wrist towards him. Glancing up, he checks with Jim, before he knots it around Jim’s right arm.

“This thing just doesn’t give up,” he comments. “Gives closure to one person, then is passed on to the next.”

“It won’t be moving on from me,” Jim says, and John can’t tell if he’s angry or sad.

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still get closure,” John replies softly.

Feeling suddenly quite sleepy, he lays his head back in Jim’s lap and looks to where the sky meets the horizon.

“Hey,” he whispers, and points down the row of cathedrals. “Here comes the sun…”

His finger tracks it until it hits the horizon, whereupon he drops his hand.

“There it goes,” Jim whispers.

“’S beautiful,” John murmurs.

He wants to watch the sun set with Jim, but after about a minute, his eyelids grow heavy, and though he fights against it, he finds them closing.

“Too tired,” he mutters, and Jim takes a hold of his hand between both of his own.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll tell you what it looks like. It’s almost dipped below the horizon now. Only a sliver. The sky’s stained pink and orange, with just a tiny bit of gold at the edges.”

“Sounds pretty.”

“It is,” Jim agrees, squeezing John’s hand. “It’s almost gone though.”

“Beautiful things can become more beautiful if they’re only there for a short time,” John breathes.

“Maybe,” Jim says quietly. “But I still wish it’d last longer.”

John gets the feeling that he might not be talking just about the sunset.

“It’s gone,” Jim murmurs, as John feels the last vestiges of warmth leave his face.

“Mmm…”

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna miss you.”

John weakly squeezes Jim’s hand as best he can. He doesn’t think there’s a reply that can do him justice.

“John?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For… What…?” John rasps. Talking’s becoming difficult.

“Sherlock,” Jim whispers, and it almost sounds like his voice is wobbling.

“’S okay. Wasn’t… your fault. Don’t… blame you.” He racks in a deep breath. “But shh… I’m listening.”

“For what?” Jim asks, confusion laced in his words.

“The sound… of victory…”

“I think it’s coming soon,” Jim says lowly, his voice sounding strained. “Just settle down… and it’ll come…”

So John settles down into Jim’s lap, using his last strength to turn away from the sun and into Jim’s body. It makes him feel warmer.

He listens for the sound of the cannon. It seems that he waits an age.

And when it finally comes, John isn’t there to hear it.

 


End file.
